Ghosts of the Past
by Lady Cinnibar
Summary: Methos' past comes back to haunt him. Or just generally bother him. Set in Lackey's SERRAted Edge universe, no characters of ML used, ideas only.
1. The Hunt Begins

Disclaimer: I don't own Methos, Duncan, Dawson, etc… They belong to Davis-Panzer, and not me. If they did, I'd be rich, and not be in debt to my college. Right, so don't sue me, I owe money already, you don't want me declaring bankruptcy.

Methos sipped the beer and glanced at the cork. _Fishing. Why the hell did MacLeod think of fishing? At least Dawson is enjoying himself. And there's plenty of beer._

Duncan was busily pulling in a fish, and his eyes sparkled with the light that only comes of a good time.

"Why are we here again MacLeod? If you want fish, there are plenty of stores in the area we can buy them from…" He complained, trying not to sound too protesting. It was expected, of course.

Duncan looked as if he was going to glare, but an approaching group of giggly girls stalled whatever comment he was going to make.

(Meanwhile, in the girl's world…)

"I dare you, Marie Juliet Amberain to kiss the next guy you see on the lips!"

"You're on!" _Oh, gods, why'd I say that? Must be the Guinness talking…_

"Oh! Three guys…" Red said, suddenly, as they came around a bend in the asphalt path. "I guess this means you have to modify the plans a little, Rita…"

"Fine. Pick one of the three to kiss." Rita said. "Oh my god! Look at that one! Talk about your hotties! Tall, dark, and handsome! Be still my beating heart! How come you get the lucky dares Ree? Everytime you toss me a dare like this, the next guy I see happens to be fifty, overweight, balding, and seriously in need of a bath!"

(Back to the Highlander crew…)

They were wildly different. A blond, a brunette, and a red head. _Sounds like a bad joke… Wait a minute, is that brunette coming towards me?_

One of them moved to stand in front of him. "Hi. Can you tell my friends that this is a stupid fucking dare?"

_Shall I make her squirm, or let her go?_ He mused, then looked up. "Well I don't kn…"

"Julia?" He managed, after a pause, in which baffled golden eyes held him, like a deer in headlights.

The same tilt of the head, the same eyes. Rich brown hair, rippling over her shoulders, the sun glowed within its depths, and shadow lurked under its locks. Same face, square, and as Celtic as Celtic gets. The single freckle at the corner of her eye, even the one green freckle in the right eye, like a dark agate lurking in molten bronze.

"No…" She chided. "I must look like someone you know. It's the brown hair, brown eyes, and plain indiscriminate looks thing. Everybody says I resemble someone they know…"

He searched her face, build, to find something, but could find nothing that did not look exactly like the young warrior maid, dead these three thousand years. "Right, Julia, Julia didn't have glasses." He managed. "And she was shorter." He lied, that last part. Julia was exactly that height, he'd bet. Just tall enough to be average for these days, just short enough that he could bury his nose in her hair, which had always smelled of heather.

She smiled. "Old friend?"

"She saved my life, once." He admitted, closing his eyes to relive the moment in which her sword flashed down, and stopped the smelly nasty brute that was her enemy from beheading the traveler wandering the roads of France. "And I failed to save hers." The Roman troops, charging, and Julia tossing him her sword, even as they struck her down. It was the first, and last, time he'd ever used the sword. He'd tossed it into the Mediterranean, only to retrieve it in order to mark her cairn. But her last act had saved him from the Romans, who'd fought hard, but not as well as an infuriated Immortal. The one of two of them who had survived had turned tail and run, leaving Julia's hacked off head, their trophy, behind. If he closed his eyes, he could still see her sword spinning in the air over the river, and the solid weight of it smacking into his palm, like the last wish of its wielder had controlled its flight.

_Julia, I called you, in my arrogance, although your name was something else entirely. Julia, because you looked a little like Julius' daughter. You stood by my side, though, with those burning eyes, and when you were trapped on the other side of the river, you did your best to keep the Romans from coming for me. You shared salt with me, and called me brother. And I didn't appreciate you, and how lonely I'd been before you came, until you were gone._

"I don't know. You should do something crazy at least once in your life. What exactly is the dare?" He smiled at this modern Julia.

The two girls were cat-calling her, encouraging her to do 'it'.

She blushed. "I can't tell you."

"Well, then I can't let you out of it." He said smugly.

"You can't object now…"

Before he could voice protest, smooth hands (not without some calluses, though) gripped his face, and he was kissed. She smelled like spices, like ambergris and cinnamon. And when a single lock of the hair fell in front of his nose, he froze. Heather. He could almost see the shrub dancing in a brisk sea breeze, the scent carried to him on that same breeze. 

_Julia is definitely a good kisser._ It passed through his thoughts like a whisper, and he stared blankly, shocked, into her face. Her head was down-turned, and slightly away, but her cheekbones were rosy colored.

"You're forgiven." He stammered.

The girls were screeching in delight.

"Look, what's your name."

"Marie Juliet." She said softly, and ran away.

"Wait!"

But those fleet feet, bound in sandals, carried her past her suddenly shocked friends. The sun backlit her, a silhouette against the fire of its evening light. She turned, briefly, and the wind lifted her hair, to make it dance and whip like a silk banner in the breeze, frozen. She almost resembled an ancient warrior clad in modern clothes, silhouetted against the perfect blue sky, before she was over the hill in a flash.


	2. Memories at Play

Disclaiming here… don't own anything except the story idea, setup, the format of the writing, and the Wonder Triplets of Ree, Red, and Rita… Everything else belongs to Davis-Panzer, even if I wish I owned it anyway. Play nice!

"I don't believe you did it, Marie!" Red shrieked. "Oh my god! He was a complete stranger! He could have had herpes or something!"

She flushed and turned her head aside.

"Why'd you pick him, and not the one with the fish?" Margarita asked, confusion running rampant in her voice. "I mean, that nose! The fish guy definitely had muscles, and boy, that hair! I tell you, he looked hot! You had to pick the middle one, I mean, at least it wasn't the old guy, but…"

"And why'd you run like that? I mean, I just about broke my neck trying to catch up to you!" Red moaned. She chuckled suddenly. "It might have been that dig about the guys you keep getting. She must have felt guilty."

"That does sound like Ree's modus operandi, yeah." Rita said, rolling her eyes. "Jeez, Ree, you gotta stop going on the guilt trips! I mean, you never unpack those bags of yours!"

She remained silent, staring into the forest she'd finally stopped in. She sat lightly on a fallen tree at the side of the path. It looked like some Boy Scouts had been drafted to drag this giant off the path, for last time they'd been this way, they'd had to climb over the fallen oak.

_How do I say I saw him in a dream? One of the strange ones, where I'm someone else, but I'm not? Like I'm in a life I've lived before? But that's sheer nonsense, and Red and Rita would justly scorch me for it. Well, Red has been hanging out with that Dee person. One of these days she'll have to introduce us to her new pal. After all, you only get one life..._ But something deep within her said no, and spoke of cycles, and drinks at the river of forgetfulness not being so deep as they should be. That something deep within chuckled at the distraught face the stranger had displayed. Methos, that voice called him, and chided her for using the name she'd heard the other two call, while she held him trapped with her gaze. _His name was Adam. Pierson, I think the old guy called him. Adam Pierson? Strange enough name, but better than Methos, which comes from I don't know where. Besides! How'd he recognize me if he is from this conjectural past-life?! Whoever would have known me then would be dead, because nobody lives forever._ And that voice deep within her spoke again. Methos had spoken of others, whose wounds healed with a speed surely blessed by the Mother. Spoken of others who lived despite all battles wounds, and death itself could not claim them, lest their heads were sundered from their bodies. They were the children of the Goddess, the voice whispered. _There is no Goddess! This is foolishness! There is only the Lord, the Creator of All!_

_But what if He let others worship Him in other ways, let them worship Him not as a man as custom portrays Him, but as a Goddess? A Life Force who commands others to interact with humans for him? Is that not the Lord and His angels, child? _The voice spoke again, in a different way. Another of those so-called past lives asserting itself? This one whispered to her of herbs, and how to play the lap harp. It whispered of the stages of the moon, and pagan rituals she firmly squished, ruthlessly suppressing any hint of rebellion. She'd allow no doubts to mar her faith.

A hand settled onto her shoulder, and she looked up with startlement into the gentle, understanding eyes of Red. "Struggling again? Are you still upset about that Roderick character calling you a 'dark paladin of Yahweh, who'd quite gleefully drag anyone who disagreed with you to the stake, as witches and warlocks'?"

"Yeah, I'm still upset about that. I don't fight…"

"Except for play, in the SCA…" Red chanted, like a long repeated plea. "I know, I know."

"Ah, calm down, Ree. He's a fag." Rita said, plopping down on the oak with all the sheer oomph of a self-possessed American teen. "Hey, I still get a kick out of that rhyme, you know. Besides, you're not half so stuck up and judgmental as you used to be!"

"Gee, thanks, I think…" Ree said, drawling. "Could you be a little less damning in your praise?"

"What's wrong Methos?" Dawson asked. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

Duncan frowned off to where the girl had vanished. He hummed a snatch of song, almost to himself, recalling something, or someone.

"She just looked like someone I knew about two thousand years ago. A Celtic warrior maid, who killed another Celt that was about to take my head for a trophy. She went down under the boots of another clan, and she tossed me her sword as she died. It was the only thing that let me keep my head, again. The Romans enjoyed taking heads as trophies, especially if they think you're Spartacus, and she helped me so.... They killed her, but I didn't let them take her head or mine." Methos muttered.

Duncan looked back at Methos. "She reminded you of someone too, hmm?"

"You remembered someone?" Methos said, frowning.

"Just someone I knew looked exactly like that, when I was a wee lad."

"Who?" Both friendly and professional curiosity warred in Dawson, and Methos snickered to see it.

Duncan spoke slowly. "Maire. She was one of the bards, the Old Faith. I knew her when I was a child."

His mind flashed back to the woman who'd sung the news, and whose eyes burned. Many of the older ladies spoke to her, and would not permit the more Christian young folk todrive her out. He remembered, faintly, the fuss they'd made of her. She was Irish, they said, and a Celtic Christian. She'd looked right at him and winked, then told him to remember her, when he was a great warrior. He'd thought it great, that this bard and singer said he'd be a great warrior.

"I think she was pagan, and I think she only pretended to be a good Christian so she wouldn't be stoned. She certainly knew too many of the old myths, and she spoke of druids like she knew them. Oh, but she could tell you stories that trapped you for hours. The mothers of the clan loved her, keeping us out of their hair for however long she chose to weave stories of Lugh, of Morgana, and Arthur, and Merlin" Duncan said. "She wasn't an Immortal though, and died even before she should have."

"How?" Dawson asked. Methos wondered when the notebook would be pulled out. Or perhaps the senior Watcher had developed the ability to remember MacLeod's yarns, filing the rare information about the Immortal's mortal life away.

"She was caught between two warring clans, and slain. The rumors passed to us that she'd been buried, and no sooner was a cairn raised over her head, than fairies and other things of pagan ilk started to appear about the area." The Highlander chuckled. "She always washed her hair with a soap that smelled of heather."

Methos paled. "Julia. The Celt, she was obsessed with cleanliness, and her hair always smelled of heather. If they looked exactly the same, and…."

Dawson looked at the two of them. "It can't be the same person. I mean, both of them died, right?"

"Could it be?" Methos wondered. "Could she be returning to life again and again? And never forgetting?"

Dawson chuckled. "If you ask the Eastern faiths, they'd say yes."

Duncan sighed. "And the faith that Maire practiced would say yes as well…"

© Lady Cinnibar


	3. I Dreamed a Dream of a Gentle Maid

Standard disclaimer to be assumed to be here… don't feel like typing it up…

"Die!" screamed the man, and Methos was wise enough to duck the swinging blow. But not fast enough to dodge the rope trap.

He rolled to the bottom of the hill, completely tangled in a net. _I thought only others like me ran around screaming 'Die' or other inane comments like that…_

His opponent was one of the dirty, nasty Celts of the area. Never bathed, nasty, and absolutely a pain in the ass of any Romans who came along. Since he'd just escaped the slaughter of his armies by those self-same Romans, he was grateful for the Celts… except this one. Oh yes, he didn't appreciate this little tribal nutcase in the least.

The man clambered down the hill, and dragged the net bundle a bit towards a wood. You could almost see his mind churning. Romans mean trouble. Take the Roman's head, and use it to drive off all the other Romans who come along.

Methos shuddered when his head and neck area was freed from the godawful tangle. _I am so dead, and I deserve it. I wasn't watching the area around me, and I knew the damn locals had started posting heads to drive off Romans. And anyone with a sense of smell! By Apollo's Steeds, I could smell that village I skirted a half-day's walk off!_ He shuddered, remembering the heads stuck on poles, staring blankly at nothing, in various states of decay. Whatever happened to honoring the dead by placing their bones in a temple? Honestly, that had been disgusting.

The warrior smiled, and Methos flinched from the reek. _Let him think me a sissy. I'm not gonna let the pain in the ass think he did any good whatsoever by taking my head._

A harsh scream split the air, and his opponent stared down at the spear imbedded from his chest. Dumbfounded, the shaggy, and now quite dead, smelly warrior Celt collapsed to the ground.

Someone came to tug the spear out, and spit on the corpse. An enemy tribe, perhaps? The bear fur cloak obscured anything he could see of this stranger.

Until they turned.

"Need some help, Roman?" She said in poorly accented Latin. She carried a bronze short sword, and a shield with the triskol on it.

"I'd appreciate it, yes…" He began.

"Stupid idiots. I may not like your folks, but our people aren't stupid enough to go and try and get your attention."

Methos shrugged. "I'm not Roman, actually."

She looked at him, tangled in the ropes. She gave him a good once over, and grinned. "No. You're not carrying enough goods, are you? Not a trader, then… What are you?"

"I have been called… Spartacus." He said, "But my name's really Methos."

She grinned even broader. "That's sweet. Traders do bring us news, you know. The Romans want Spartacus' head on a stake, Methos."

"What's your name?"

"Ah, but that would be telling you things…" She smiled.

"I'm going to call you Julia."

She gave him a bitter stare. "Maybe I should give you my name, just to avoid being called by a Roman name." She had the look of a witch's bitter potion going down, lips twisted, eyes scrunched, and nose twitched.

He laughed at her expression, even if she was definitely the one in power.

She sawed him out with a jagged stone, not risking her blade to cut one such as him free. "Where do your feet take you, oh enemy of Rome?"

"Anywhere away from Rome, at the moment." He chuckled.

"Fine. Where you go, I go also."

His eyebrows rose. "I don't need help."

"Did I say that, oh warrior?" She said, as she pulled him to his feet. "I just said where you go, I go also. It'll be fun, and I'll get to kill lots of Romans, I bet. I can't exactly go home just yet. Not with a warrior trying to make me into a mother goddess." Another sour look crossed her face. "Not in a thousand lives would I sleep with one whose idea of fun is tying his bride's hair to a horse and whipping it!"

Methos grimaced. "What did she do?"

"Slapped him for drinking up the stores." She shrugged. "I'm not going to be number two, thank the gods…"

They sat at a campfire, Julia skinning the rabbit. "Where is the cut upon your arm, Methos? Did Borvo come while I was not looking, and heal you? Or are you one of those folks to whom Taranis has given his power, to be released at your death?"

Methos looked up from his perusal of his sandal, frowning. "What do you mean, Julia?"

"Those who hold the thunders of the heavens within them. Taranis gave them his thunder, to release it in great storms when someone slays them and takes their head as a trophy. We saw a fight once, between two of the folk. One of them told us about them, in order that he may live." She shook her head. "My father sent him on his way, and he left. He was a slave for a good while, though, and taught me Latin. He was a Greek, he said, name of Phelus. Andraste's people, the wise woman said."

"Who is Taranis? Borvo? Andraste?"

"Poor, poor Methos, to have been in Rome, only aware of the Roman's gods. Taranis is like to this Jupiter, who hurls lightning. He is the wheel, which brings change to all the tribes, and even to Rome. Borvo is a healer of the gods, of course, why else would he be healing you? And Andraste, well, she is the goddess of war, and she leads her people to victory." She shook her head.

"I'm not the child of a god, I'm an Immortal. Immortals are foundlings, we have no parents." He shot her a hard glare, but she remained unaffected. "No parents, no children, no family."

She smirked. "Or maybe the gods put you here to keep you out of their hair, old man. What else of being a god-child? Tell me of Borvo's gift."

Methos laughed. "We heal of all wounds given to us, even death."

"That ugly fellow trying to get this area hip deep in Romans wasn't one of you, was he?" Her face was creased with worry for her tribe.

"No, no… I'd have known. We have this power within us, we call it the Quickening. I can tell when someone else with it is near."

She laughed. "Like the wolf knows when others are near, but only you can hear your folk's howls?"

He nodded. "Sorta. Only, we're all trying to kill each other."

"It must not be so fun to be a child of the gods." She shook her head sadly.

"A time ago, I would have thrilled to be called a child of the gods. I wasn't a good man." Methos sighed.

"Well, no one is. It's why men have sisters, to keep them balanced."

"I haven't got a sister. Remember? No family?" It appeared one of the straps needed patching.

"I'll be your sister. We'll take oaths on it. Forever, Methos."

"You're dead, Spartacus!" bellowed the commander of the troops. Julia ran, fleet of foot, spear long lost, in some Roman who wouldn't be getting up again.

_Just my rotten luck, there's a Roman in town who saw me at the area, and he just so happens to be in command of the troops!_ Methos groused to himself as he crossed a wooden log over a ravine. It teetered and rocked under his feet, but at the moment he didn't care. Julia followed him, feet flashing.

"Can't we just fight them?"

"And lose? They outnumber us if you didn't notice?" He replied.

She wasn't happy, and her face showed it. Then, it suddenly brightened. "I'll see about that!"

He followed as she pelted across some very difficult terrain.

The Romans were dropping behind, and more than a few went down in screams of agony.

She smiled. "Watch out for the fox holes!"

She leapt right over one of them. No wonder the Romans were falling. They were breaking their legs!

Methos smiled in bloody appreciation for the Celtic warrior's dirty tricks.

Julia looked back at him, briefly, once they were on the coastland.

Julia let him get the lead. He wasn't stupid, he ran for the cliffs. He scrambled up one, and was waiting for her, when the Romans came running. She was just behind him.

He was in the lead, she'd fallen back, and some of the Romans were almost to him. She was surrounded.

When he pelted over the bridge, and the Romans joined him.

She pulled up to a halt, hair blowing in the wind, and saluted him briefly, before turning to meet the Romans. She'd take half, he'd deal with the rest.

Methos was too busy fighting the remaining Romans to watch Julia, but he dispatched the last, and turned to see her go down. The Roman nearest her smiled, and Methos stared in horror as she lifted a blood covered arm, tossing him her sword. "Live, Methos, live!" The sword hummed in the air, metal reflecting the dying sun back, bloody, and bloodier. His hand caught it of its own accord, even as Julia's form thudded to the earth. 

Methos looked down at the grave, marked with only a short sword sticking from the cairn. He swallowed. _Mortals sacrifice their lives for me. I'm not a child of the gods, as Julia claimed, but…_

He looked around him, at the shore, and the forest. Not a soul in sight, not even the smoke of a town to mark the presence of other souls. The Romans were feeding the fish, and Julia… Julia was under the pile of stones, no burial suited for a warrior of the Celts. He'd buried her spear, and her shield, with her, and the swords of the Romans, and their shields. Let those be her booty to the underworld, let her show those to earn passage, and prove her warrior might.

As for him, he'd be alone. Again. No one to tell him dirty jokes about the Romans, no one to punch him in the arm. He'd almost felt like she was a Horseman, except she was a girl, and she wasn't crazy. She was his sister, a sword wielding maniac, but she'd made herself into his family, and he'd long toast her memory.

© Lady Cinnibar


	4. Which Dreams Do Haunt Us

At last, the long awaited fourth chapter! Sorry it took so long, my hard drive crashed and burned, and I had to start from scratch. Serious pain in the derriere there… Oh, and of course I'll finish this, just as long as I remember where I was going with it. All my notes, and structural organization… poof! It was going to be twenty-four chapters, exactly… I'll try. Oh, and yes, Red, Red will get a name, and no it's not you. For instance, this story Red isn't quite as silly as you, and she's a horror fan, and her taste in literature sucks… hehehehehehe….

You guys know the disclaimer business by now, right? Methos isn't mine, damn it all! But the story is… My idea, you can't have it. Unless you play nice…

It was dark, floating in darkness, clouds of shadows enfolding her legs and caressing her skin. She stood on something she could not see. There was no horizon for this never-ending plain of black mist. She stood there, listless, with nothing to protect her from the cold fingers of the dark mist. Not even knowledge, not even the simple knowledge of who she was. I... who am I? 

I… I am Mayana, and I am... I am… I am a guardian of the high priest to the sky father. 

With that thought, there was a place, and a sense of self. She stood in line, spear readied, eyes hard. She was the first to strike at the demon. It had taken the form of a young acolyte, and the temple guards had been given it to deal with. "Get you gone, demon! Leave thou the body of Zakad!" They were laughing, enjoying themselves, and she the most of all. The demon was in pain, although it's evil power knitted the wounds the body took. Her guardsmen took their lead from her, their captain, and weapons hewed at the body. She laughed, and laughed, until his blood splashed on the temple stones, and the empty head lolled.

"Know my curse, mortal child!" A voice thundered, and she stood along in the suddenly ruined city. Bodies lay strewn about, and nothing of value remained. Not even a single bird sung in this, what had been a living garden. "I doom you to die and be born again, never to know the peace of true death! Each life you live will end in pain as great as Zakad's life ended in. And never will this curse end until I or my heir ends it! This is the price you pay for slaughtering my heir, the son of my heart!"

She walked through these gardens, weeping at the sight of those she'd loved dead. There was Herruk, his fine spear and strong arm had availed him not. There Ugush, his sparkling eyes and solemn smile vanished in the glaze of death. That braided cord about that body's waist surely belonged to Lamech, but the head was a crushed ruin, flies swarming on the gray flesh oozing through black locks of hair. She began to run, deep into the city, past the shells of homes, past the palace, to her master's temple.

It was a Feast Day. Surely someone guarded the Temple, and there is someone alive…

A single moving foot stuck out from behind a wall, and she slowed to round the wall, smile curving up her face.

Damu laid there, a spear through his gut, a wild dog tugging at the entrails spilling from his body. One outflung hand reached for something, the eyes glazed in death watching something.

She turned to see, as the dog fled, and froze.

Her own face stared back at her, eyes wide in the grip of death, glazed and empty. Three spears pinned her to a wall, but those were of no moment to her. Her mother's necklace glittered on her neck, and her father's staff hung from her hand.

It was an instant of horrible realization, and the world spun about her, until she stood, clad in strange garments, in a village. Strange? Why was she thinking these were strange? Why, it was absolutely a normal set of clothing. Mahthereta shook the daydream off and looked around the village. She was proud of them, and one day Hatheus would rule the world, as the gods fore-ordained it. She smiled at the others, proud people all, proud that they were a client state of great Troy. That they survived the fall of Troy. The Gods had blessed Hatheus.

"Run! Run for your lives!" Someone pelted into the village as distant thunder rumbled, and the ground shook beneath their feet. "The Horsemen come!"

In a second, she stood in a burned and ruined village, dead bodies strewn about, the prints of hoofs burned deeply into the ground. She stared with horror, and then ran, looking for someone, anyone, still alive. Amana was missing, her slender form and sweet blue eyes not among those staring sightlessly into the sky. The temple was empty, burned. A noise came from the inner chamber.

Mahthereta drew her ceremonial short sword, stepping quietly. There is came again…

Wise old Petrus, blind but with the gift of prophecy, lay there, truly blind, as the crow pulled out his eyes. Mars had gotten his revenge upon his sister's defense of Troy by killing one of Minerva's beloved people…

But that was the least horror. Laying battered and naked, her throat smiling red blood upon the floor, lay Mahthereta herself.

Again she swirled into nothingness.

She was Mahnefer, daughter of a priest, and she died on the blades of a rival priest clan.

She was Malia, Roman merchant's sister, and she died under the spears of street toughs.

She was Mertana, who died when her tribe decided to war against Rome, slaughtered by the blades of Roman legionnaires.

She was Mirka, a Viking's wife, proud and young and strong. She died at the hands of her husband, when the drink took him.

She was Mahama, daughter of a sultan and a concubine, running free in the garden. She died at the behest of a rival sultan, to anger her father, and grieve him, so he could think of naught but revenge.

She was Mahna, Celtic warrior, and she fled from her village, to avoid marriage to a slaughterer of brides. The Wisest One spoke of meeting her fate, and told her to help a beak nosed one, for she would die in his service so that she may be freed in the future. She was aware of the lives she had lived before, and the deaths she had died.

The woods were lovely, and she walked slowly, feeling the sun caress her face. The bear's hide hung heavy on her shoulder. The stench of an enemy tribesfolk suffused her awareness, and she froze.

He was setting a trap, and even as she watched it, some fool Roman, travelling alone, walked into it.

By the time the beak nosed Roman rolled down to the bottom of the hill, she was already arguing with herself about whether or not to save a Roman. He had the nose, and other things that old Anastra had said made sense, but… He was Roman. She wasn't an enemy of them, but she didn't like them either. Then again…

Her spear made a sufficiently nice meaty thunk as it buried itself in the fool warrior's chest. He'd bring the legionnaires down upon the tribes of the area, and that was one thing she didn't want. Let him pay for his crimes, not herself and her clan. He looked down at it like he was shocked. The fool didn't know enough to be keen to the fact he was dead, and he had to keep moving, didn't he?

She bounded down the hill to help, keeping the thick hide of the bear between her and the Roman. A thrust of her trusty sword finished the bloody gargle of the smelly tribesman, and she wrenched her spear from his chest. The sucking noise covered her gagging over his sheer stench. Did this fool not know how to properly tan hides? Did he never bathe? That was one thing the Romans were to be lauded for, their fastidious cleanness. A clean scent made it harder to smell you, and thus you could get closer to your prey before they knew you were there. This ignorant fool probably had to hunt with those foolish rope traps he'd caught this Roman with.

She spoke in Latin, having learned it from a captive of the village. It was always useful to know one's potential enemies' tongue. "Need some help, Roman?" She spoke as she turned, letting him see who had rescued him. She made sure he'd see the triskol on her shield, so he'd not think her one of their servant tribes.

"I'd appreciate it, yes…" He began.

She spat at the dead body. He was no beast, for even animals had more brains than this purely human fool did. "Stupid idiots. I may not like your folks, but our people aren't stupid enough to go and try and get your attention."

The skinny stranger shrugged as much as the ropes and nets tangled about his pale frame would let him. "I'm not Roman, actually."

She frowned, and studied him. He wore the Roman clothing, and no pants, but, he had but the one small pack, and the one sword. And he was travelling alone. Even the poorest Roman trader had at least one warrior with him, that they termed a slave. She grinned with appreciation. Those tunics did not hide much when you were tied and tangled. "No. You're not carrying enough goods, are you? Not a trader, then… What are you?"

"I have been called… Spartacus." He said, slightly hesitant, "But my name's really Methos."

Her grin spread, and she felt a positive sense of delight dancing through her. Spartacus, the Roman slave who had spread revolt and war. She felt much as a lion did when he saw a wounded stag, unable to flee. For a moment she wondered if this grin would split her cheeks. "That's sweet. Traders do bring us news, you know. The Romans want Spartacus' head on a stake, Methos."

"What's your name?" He asked, pushing the envelope. Unless he was stupid, he was well aware she definitely had the advantage here…

"Ah, but that would be telling you things…" Her fierce grin became a secretive smile. He'd name her himself, Anastra said, it was part of the magic which would bind him to her, so he would free her later.

"I'm going to call you Julia."

She flinched inside. A Roman name? How disgusting! The man had been living among those overly annoying prigs far too long, he'd picked up their habits of naming. "Maybe I should give you my name, just to avoid being called by a Roman name." She shuddered inside to think that this was the magic she'd have to endure in order to be free of her strange and painful curse.

He laughed at her expression, and strangely enough, that was what made her decide to truly free him.

"Where do your feet take you, oh enemy of Rome?" She asked idly, using a stone to saw through the cheaply made rope and twine. Better that than a sword that could nigh on gut him if she cut wrong. She spoke so nonchalantly in order to keep him from thinking she was forced to follow him. Maybe she could de-Roman him while they spent time together…

"Anywhere away from Rome, at the moment." He chuckled.

"Fine. Where you go, I go also."

His eyebrows rose. "I don't need help."

"Did I say that, oh warrior?" She said, as she pulled him to his feet. "I just said where you go, I go also. It'll be fun, and I'll get to kill lots of Romans, I bet. I can't exactly go home just yet. Not with a warrior trying to make me into a mother goddess." She shuddered at the memory of his offer, and her father's consideration of it. She'd fled with her mother's help, before she had to face such a horrible fate. She tried not to think of what her mother's help had cost the proud woman at father's hands. "Not in a thousand lives would I sleep with one whose idea of fun is tying his bride's hair to a horse and whipping it!"

The man called Methos or Spartacus grimaced. "What did she do?"

"Slapped him for drinking up the stores." She shrugged. "I'm not going to be number two, thank the gods…" Poor Tyma, they'd had to gather the bits and pieces of her from across the landscape, and they'd never recovered her scalp, tied to the horse's stirrup and torn off at the last. She struggled inside to suppress the tears she felt whenever she thought of the death of her beloved elder sister…

Night by night, campfire by campfire, she extracted from him wondrous stories of this kind called Immortals. She was not afraid, or horrified, even when she recognized him, face blue with paint after a party with a local tribe. He must have felt some great anger to wreck such havoc as one of the Horsemen, to be Death. She did feel some residual anger at the long ago death of herself, and Petras, and toyed with the idea of asking him what had happened to Amana, her littlest sister. But she held her tongue. Anastra had told her not to tell him, that he had to think of her as a plain mortal, until he met her again in another life. Then, he would feel the full weight of her curse, and free her from it. Anastra was sometimes far wiser than Petras had ever been. She swore an oath that he'd be her sword brother, though, and he swore to all the gods that he'd known in his long life that she would be his sister. Their blood mingled, and the strange blue sparks tickled her skin as his wound healed next to hers. No matter what came, he'd have the memory of her for family. And if he met her again, he would know her.

"You're dead, Spartacus!" bellowed the commander of the troops. By all the Gods in the heavens, why does Methos bring rotten luck with him! They'll carry off his head on a pike, and there will go my chance at freedom!

Methos was ahead of her, and she hoped the rough bride collapsed even as she ran across it. I have to make some obstacles to keep the Romans back.

"Can't we just fight them?" She asked, pleadingly. Fighting was so much nicer than running as if demons were on your heels…

"And lose? They outnumber us if you didn't notice?" He replied.

She considered of the problem. They were outnumbered. They had to thin the numbers down. Methos was a good fast runner, Romans usually walked. For that matter, how the hell were the damn turtles keeping up with the pair! 

Then she saw the nearby land, full of fox dens, and smiled. How many Romans would fall like a horse running too fast because they watched ahead, rather than their feet? "I'll see about that!"

To her delight, she heard screams of agony from behind them. Foolish Romans. Let's hope they don't learn from their brother's mistakes.

She smiled with hunger, and then called out a warning to her friend, and hope of salvation. "Watch out for the fox holes!"

She leapt right over one of them. She kept running, even as the screams got fewer and farther between. Damn, they were learning!

She glanced back at Methos when they hit stable ground, without the dangers of fox holes or sudden rocks. He was grinning, but starting to look tired.

Well, the gods told me I'd have to protect the man with the nose with my life. I'd just hoped I'd get a little longer than this! She thought to herself, letting him get the lead. He wasn't stupid, he ran for the cliffs. He scrambled up one, and was waiting for her, when the Romans came running. She was just behind him. The Romans are catching up. We'll never get away in time. I'll have to see if I can't keep him alive long enough to save me in the next go around!

He was in the lead, she'd fallen back, and some of the Romans were almost to him. She was surrounded.

When he pelted over the bridge and a few of the Romans joined him.

She pulled up to a halt, hair blowing in the wind, and saluted him briefly, before turning to meet the Romans. She'd take the lion's share of these legionnaires, exhausted and panting, he'd deal with the rest. One foot idly kicked the bridge so it fell into the ravine, and splashed in the water below.

She kept an eye on Methos, even as her sword and shield blocked most blades stabbing for her heart. She'd quickly gotten wounded, and after the run, exhaustion haunted her steps. She was doomed, and well she knew it. But she'd had ten thousand lives, or more, and an unhealthy percentage of those were warriors. She knew dirty tricks these Romans had only heard rumors of as legends.

She gave a good accounting of herself, and her shield shoved more than one into the ravine, to fall screaming, only to end in a great crash of water. But for the dozen she had slain, there were a dozen more, and she had not the energy to keep this up.

She heard a scream, and saw a Roman falling into the ravine below. With Methos' sword sticking from an awkward angle in his ribs. She groaned as a sword stabbed deep into her side. Her lack of attention had cost her. She summoned up the last of her strength, even as she knelt, the Roman above her grinning like a lion as he prepared for the final blow.

The sword spun in the air, flaming the color of blood, crimson droplets flying off. "Live, Methos, live!" It sang, the blade, as it cut through the air, and the hilt landed in Methos' palm like it belonged there. She fell, already feeling death come stealing over her limbs, even as he began to fight again. Her last sight was of Methos fighting, grimly, using every trick at his command, tears streaming down his face. It all faded to blackness, and she was aware of the black mist grabbing her, coiling about her bare form like it owned her, like she was a pet to caress and fondle. Only now, the shades of dead ages, those she'd known in the thousands of little lives she'd lived, came for her, hands reaching, eyes sightless, wounds gaping, seeking to drag her into the world below with them.

Marie sat up with a gasp, eyes wide, shuddering. "Oh heavens! What a freaky nightmare!" She shivered. It was the same nightmare she'd been having the last three weeks running, since she met that fellow in the park. She swung her legs off the bed, then jerked her feet up, before monsters under it could grab her ankles. She sighed, and shook slightly. "I've got to do something about them… Look at me, I'm acting like a child!" She rose, and wrapped a sheet about herself. She'd drink some warm milk, and that'd chase the nightmares away. They only came once per night anyway. Even if they were shorting her of sleep, it was thankfully predictable.

It was a horrifying thought that kept her awake for awhile yet.

"If these dreams are true, and that guy really was called Methos, then I just kissed my brother! Yuck!" It was that revulsion running through her mind that she finally found the much sought Land of Nod.


	5. An Accidental Coincidence

Do I need to repeat the disclaimer again? I hope you've figured it out by now…

This was tricky to write, without my notes, but I had to come up with something. So, here it is. The fifth chapter, the fifth time I've typed a piece of the ballad of Methos. Ah… now what am I going to do with him? You'll just have to read and see, won't you… and review of course. I hope you understand that reviews are my bread and water… I'm starving here peoples…

Uh, and sorry about that snaffu. I accidentally posted the potential start of chapter six instead of chapter five. Forgive me!

"Any leads on finding that mystery lady?" Dawson chuckled as Methos entered the bar.

"Don't remind me." Methos sulked. "How am I supposed to go about finding someone who probably isn't what I think she is? Put an ad in the paper? Single Ancient Immortal, looking for Reborn Celtic Warrioress. Julia, if you're out there, call Methos at… It's ridiculous!"

"I don't know, it might work..." Duncan chuckled.

"I'd get calls from all too curious Watchers, not from the one I actually want to talk to, you young Scottish lout!" Methos said indignantly.

"Calm down." Dawson laughed. "It's no use getting flustered, old man. Why don't you check out some book stores? I've heard a private one somewhere in the city is revamping its image."

"What? Go into one of those horrendous coffee and cheap dime novel stores?" Methos looked faintly offended.

"They call themselves the 'Scent of Leather' and I hear they specialize in antique books. They also say they can find anything." Dawson looked at Methos, grinning. "Maybe some of your old books are there?"

Methos frowned, looking at the glint in the mortal's eyes. "You've been there, haven't you?"

The grin grew, and Duncan began a low chuckle.

"You found something of mine?"

"It has your name carved into it…" Duncan blurted, as the tension drew out, and Dawson said not a word.

Methos perked up. "What was it? A book? A table? An old chair?"

"A really ugly looking sofa with half a back and one arm. It was upholstered in leather, and it looks about dead. Your name is carved on the sofa back."

"Anything else?"

"We didn't spend that much time investigating it. The shop owner chased us out…" Dawson glared at Duncan…

~ * ~ * ~

The shop was brick, with windows shuttered tight.

The door chimed a bell, of course, and Methos entered the dark and welcoming hall. The scent of leather and old paper filled the shop, and he almost felt at home.

Already.

The delicate scent of roses and heather twined itself around the heavy, headier scent of old books and new. 

After the bright summer sunshine, it was like entering a tomb, and the deep quiet of the place pushed all mortal and temporary concerns out of Methos' head. So did the buzz of an Immortal. He tensed, and his hand sought the hilt of his Ivanhoe.

"I'd never profane a library that way, old friend, and the owner wouldn't like it." The voice came a'laughing from the darkness, mocking, yet honest.

Methos squinted into the shadows, letting his eyes adjust to the dim store lighting. As the darkness started to fade, he glimpsed a slender form. Immediately, the buzzing ceased, and he blinked, to clear his head of lingering pain.

A wry smile, and bright blue eyes. Wrinkled, weather beaten skin, and hair as white as snow.

"Garulf?"

"Methos, it's been a long time." The rangy Viking grabbed the ancient Immortal in a crushing bear hug.

Methos returned it with favor. "Where have you been, you old pirate?" He slapped the other man's shoulder with a thud.

"I am not a pirate!" Garulf growled. "I am a raider. As for where I've been, well, I laid low in Tibet for awhile, then played hide and go seek in the jungles of Mexico. And you, you old scourge, are looking at Ralph Garrity, Private Investigator."

Methos froze. "Say, could you find a mortal for me?"

"I'm on a case. The shop owner called me in to find a man. Little bird wants to ask him something. They're upstairs, puttering about with something. So, who are you these days?"

"Adam Pierson, researcher, and new Immortal, according to the Watchers." He chuckled. "Who do you have to find?"

Garulf stared at him. "Oh man. This was too easy. Uh, Methos, just curious… what did you do to piss off the little lady? She's offering a pretty hefty price to have you here."

Methos frowned. "Maybe it's best if I left then…"

"I'd prefer it if you wouldn't."

The voice came velvet soft, from a shadowed corner, where a heavy velvet drape covered something, and someone.

Methos swallowed, and Garulf grimaced.

"Monsieur Garrity, I assure you, your fee is not endangered. There were those other things I wanted you to find for me. I suggest you get cracking." The voice was now dangerous, like skating on thin ice.

"Adam…"

"Go on, Ralph. I'll be okay. I don't think she wants me dead." Methos said, bravado and pride hiding a slight undercurrent of fear.

The bells chimed at Ralph let himself out, casting one glance backwards at his old friend. Mortals had gotten dangerous in these last hundred years…

"Flip the sign and shoot the bolt, Methos." The voice said, and he did as she asked, then waited.


	6. A Scent of Leather

All right, you asked, you got it… (And yes, I did have it typed and ready for you, immortaljedi.) Standard disclaimers apply here. Not so standard (the writer's nuts, expect the unexpected) disclaimers may or may not apply here… And Happy Non-Denominational Holiday of Your Choice! (Sorry, been talking to my little brother again… he always does me in….) And with no further ado… ado… here it is, the sixth chapter!

The shop was unnaturally silent, even the hot summer air banished in its cool darkness. The darkness that hid the one by the curtain. Methos waited, in that hazy atmosphere of roses and leather, of soft music playing he was suddenly aware of. Some sort of ballad, about a man released from slavery.

As he waited, dust motes danced around him, shining in the sun like light from the lamps on the tables, and a soft motion made the curtain whisper.

"You're real." Her voice came, and the curtain parted. "You answer to that name as easily as you do to the one you go by. Who are you, to live in both my dreams and reality? Who are you to dance with Celtic memories that are naught more than a nightmare that ends in blood and pain? Who are you also, to be a living breathing man, who walks into my shop, and knows the private eye I hired to find you?"

"I'm just a normal guy." He shrugged.

"Excuse me, sir, but that is bullshit. The definition of normal is being redefined." She chuckled. "But, for what is normal, I will assume you like watching sports on the tube, like beer, and enjoy looking at pictures of women barely clothed." Her eyes sparkled, and they somehow matched the dry humor lurking in her voice. "Other than that, what are you?"

Methos grinned. "You have a sense of humor, don't you? You're just like her."

"That mysterious person you knew in the park?" She said, mouth twisting. "Let me get this straight, mister. Your name, as by that old coot, is Adam Pierson. Yet my nightmares labeled you as the man named Methos. You respond to Methos, and you call Pierson your current persona. You're currently employed as a researcher for a museum. Anything else I'm missing? Oh yeah, in my nightmares, you alternately figure as my killer, and my savior, depending on who the dream says I am that time around." Her eyes were cold and hard. "And since I saw you, in the park, three weeks ago, I've not had a night of sleep without a nightmare. Before, it was once a month, maybe. Now, it's three or four a night."

Methos found himself taking a step back as she advanced, like a mouse backing from a very angry, and very powerful, lion. He could almost envision the tail swishing, as the lion spoke, as if in an African fairy tale. 'And why should I not eat you, mouse? I owe you no favors. The past between us is gone, you have done nothing for me in years uncounted. You are prey, mouse.' The question here was how could he make himself a useful mouse, before the lion leaped?

"Who are you, Methos? Are you friend or foe? Will you break this curse that lays me low, or will you feature in future dreams of another woman, my blood on your hands?" She growled, deep in her throat and chest, a rumbling sound that covered the music in the background briefly.

"I would never hurt Julia, for she was my sister." He said, softly. "And I've laid the killing business aside. It's a waste of time, energy, and it gets me into too much hot water."

She stopped in her stalking approach, and considered the defense. Those eyes were far too wise, and far too pained, to be Julia's. Who was she?

"As to that matter, who are you? Are you a woman I knew and loved as my own? She's been dead almost two thousand years, so who are you that knows my name? Who are you to demand answers from me? Are you a friend, who will keep my secrets safe, or are you an enemy, who would tell the world where I am? Who are you to hire an old friend of mine to find me? Who are you to judge me?"

The silence stretched out, as the pair considered each other. One, the five thousand year old Immortal, Death Incarnate. His age and the blood and death that stained his past reached out like dark tendrils to make the silent room seem deathly quiet. The knowledge and the wisdom he'd accumulated shone out of him, a powerful pressure of karma.

But she remained unaffected by the drama of his presence, like water, she gave under its pressure, and slid aside. Her own presence was no less, no weaker. Thousands of lives, thousands of deaths, like a shield against his sheer age. The oldest life she'd lived was older than Methos by far. Not that they'd all been continuous. Even so, a thousand fragments can hold off five thousand continuous years.

It was a battle of equals, this silent stare down, and any who'd be in the room would have quailed before its intensity.

The world had ceased to exist for the pair.

Methos was quietly amazed. Her eyes looked as world-weary as his own, as bitter, and as wise. There was no judgement behind them, only weariness, and apprehension. Here, in the world of mortals, he'd found someone who was his equal, as Julia had never been. Here was someone who knew all sorrows, and suffered greater than he in the course of time. Here was someone who knew also the paths of darkness, had trod them, and had done things as dark as he. Someone who was not shallow as modern life demanded, someone who knew the pains of war, the heady power of thundering violence, the seduction of unrestrained insanity.

For her part, she was awake to all her lives. Walls Julia had never known existed had been torn down in her tumultuous nights. Lives never remembered because of the sheer agony of their ending or for the darkness in which they'd been lived, and lives never recalled for the peace and happiness, for which the death blow was unexpected and unknown, they too held power in this strange new life. Here was the World, the life of humanity, reborn and distilled into one woman, warrior, priest, wife, and ruler. There'd been no job she'd not done, no evil she'd not felt or committed, no good she'd not seen, or done. In thousands of lives, she'd done what no Immortal would ever do, could ever do, had ever done.

The tension would have kept on building, had not the world intruded into their concentration. She was mouthing the lyrics to the song playing by instinct, and once Methos realized it, his mind split part of itself off to listen.

"Once I was the King of Spain… now I eat humble pie!" The bouncy, amusing words declared, and he snorted, then laughed, as the song continued on this improbable thesis.

She froze, confusion on her face, until she cued to the song. "Oh! You like? It's Moxy Früvous. The title is King of Spain. They're a Canadian band…"

Methos smiled. "It's a funny song."

She smiled a delightful grin that for a brief moment banished all the darkness, and made her a girl at play. "It is, isn't it? God, I love the modern world."

"Refrigerated beer, television, and airplanes." He sighed, happily. "Much better than running around in ancient France, one step ahead of the head hunting Romans."

She smiled. "You won."

"I won? Huh?" His last concentration on their contest vanished before his bafflement.

"They're all dead, a long vanished country, and you're still here, and your head's still attached to your neck. Taranis' thunder hasn't been released yet." She shrugged, simply. "Ah, gads! Here I am, a good Catholic girl, speaking of gods long since myth to explain that which I don't really understand, or want to understand."

"I did win, didn't I? And I only have my head because a brave Celtic warrior whom I insulted with the name of Julia saved my life, and stayed with me, even when my past frightened her." He said, softly. "And if Julia was only one life of a thousand in the timeline of one soul, I still owe the soul behind her my life, and my brotherhood."

"For crying out loud, why would I tell anyone who you were? I'd get locked up in a loony bin faster than a head can spin about! What would I say, you're an ancient demon? Or the child of gods I don't believe in, who just so happens to be a nice guy? I would never betray someone who could free me from the curse I'm under." She sighed, eyes flashing dark. "Life sucks, and it somehow seems my life sucks worse than most. I know those lines about the Good Old Days for the crap they are."

Their eyes met, and for a moment, two ancient powers who'd done their best to stay out of the history books were in agreement.

"What's so good about wearing half-rotten skins, and eating your own fleas?" Methos grimaced.

"Hey, man, my first life was actually somewhat civilized! I was a temple guard in one of those muddy villages back in the old days, pre-Babylon. Of course, back then, I thought it was hot to trot, the then days New York. Until it was sacked by someone else…" She frowned.

"A female temple guard!?" Methos blurted.

"We were still worshipping those little rounded belly stone figures, you know." She said, dryly. "Women could do whatever they wanted. I wanted to be a temple guard. I was good at it too! I was the captain on the guard! Responsible for all sorts of things, and as their leader, the one who got the curse when we pissed off someone important."

"Uh… " Methos frowned. "That's pretty ancient history, isn't it?"

"We were the cream of the crop in those days. Along a migration path, not troubled by the plains lions." She sighed. "I'd fought one, you know, a great behemoth of a cave lion. The guys and I ganged up on it, and threw spears at it. It was stuck at the bottom of a hole." Her eyes were all misty like. "Ah, the innocence. I miss that, you know. Knowing I was the biggest fish in the temple village pond."

"Where was the temple?"

"Somewhere." She shrugged. "I think somewhere in, uh, Ethiopia. I have no clue, and at those days, we didn't leave very many ruins."

"Jeesh! You're older than me!" He complained. "No fair!"

"Mine isn't contiguous you know." She laughed.

"Yeah, but I didn't age, and had to move on every twenty or so years!"

"And I died lots, and had to suffer all the things you don't need to worry about." She tossed back.

"How much do you remember, of Julia?"

"If I try… everything." She shrugged. "The dreams are pretty vivid."

"Are you sure they're dreams?"

"Not really, but I'm not about to admit they aren't." Her eyes were dark. "I've strayed far enough off the beaten path to be afraid of the predators who haunt the plains…"

Methos nodded, and smiled. "Well, the first thing, Marie Juliet, is to tell me if that's really your name…"

"Marie Juliet Amberain, owner and chief manager of Scent of Leather, and no, it's not a porn store. My father named it, before he died." She smiled, bitterly.

"And I am Methos, now called by the mortal world Adam Pierson." He swept into a bow. "I am at your service, fair lady, for whatever you may desire."

"Well, my first desire is to know, did we really swear blood brothership?"

"Something close to that. It was 87 BC."

"I kissed my brother. Ewwwwww!"

That destroyed the last of any solemnity in the conversation quite handly.


	7. Dangerous Schemes

Disclaimers apply here. This chapter is dedicated to my reviewers, because if they didn't review this chapter wouldn't be in existence. Especially immortaljedi. The Harry Potter/ Highlander crossover just makes me want to play around with Methos myself. Not that I own Methos, or Duncan. Or anyone for that matter, except the Bad Joke Trio… See, if you review, I write more. It's a reason to review, isn't it?  
  
In the Previous Chapter:  
  
Methos and Julia have met again, in Marie Juliet's (Julia) shop, A Scent of Leather. But this is a new chapter…. Happening at the same time as the last one.  
  
  
  
Somewhere in the place where the dead go, something hissed angrily, and on the plain of black, dark smoke coiling, a serpent lifted its hooded head. Red eyes gleamed in the lightless world of mists and shadows. It hissed in anger as it reached into the world of mortals.  
  
Methos, a student of its next to most recent incarnation among the immortals, was going to free the Cursed One. Should she be freed, she would be dangerous indeed to its long-term plans.  
  
Conner MacLeod, the man who'd stopped it last, was dead, and it hissed with pleasure, red eyes glowing with a light that made even the revenge filled spirits around it shrink away, leaving the glassy plain free of mists about it.  
  
Methos must die, and the Cursed One must be sent on to her next incarnation. Something painful, perhaps, to bind the curse deeper into her.  
  
But, growing up would take so long, and by that time, she'd be freed. No, the snake hissed, as its eyes flashed, and it sought out the prepared mind of its last student.  
  
It was time for it to put a contingency plan into action. The poor fool would never know what had happened.  
  
The snake lashed out, seeking energy, and it's shining black fangs sunk into one of the revenge filled ghosts. As the energy faded from it, banishing the soul to non-existence, sound echoed across the soundless darkness, the unending plains. The soul was screaming, it's final and ultimate death agonies ripping the ordered darkness into a chaos of fear, for just a brief moment.  
  
  
  
The teapot screamed in an agony of super heated air, and Samedes quickly lifted it to pour into a cup. He sighed, and leaned over the aromatic beverage.  
  
"Well, Sam, how're results going?" drawled a rather rangy looking fellow as he entered the sunny tea and cookie shop.  
  
"You are a most unrespectful student." Samedes sighed, eyes rolling. "My name is not Sam."  
  
"Sure thing, teach." The man said, and sat down at the booth. "I've got bad news."  
  
"Bad news is never good." Samedes said, sitting up a little straighter. "Well, Neville?"  
  
Neville Alexander MacFurgeson, born 1823 AD in the Old West, chewed on his lower lip. "You remember telling me that young girl I was looking at was the enemy of your teacher, and therefore my enemy? That I was never to forgive her, or protect her from the bad karma she's earned?"  
  
"Yes…"  
  
"And remember telling me that the last of the old man's senior students was the legendary Methos?"  
  
"Yes." Samedes snapped. "Are you going someplace with this?"  
  
"It seems that Methos and that young girl have met each other, and become friends. I have a bad idea that he's gonna try and break the old master's retribution on her."  
  
Samedes stared in shock. His teacher, his master, had told him to stop any of his other students from saving her, even at the cost of his brothers' lives. He'd been given the greatest trust. Greater even than Methos had ever been given.  
  
And now Methos, the oldest surviving Immortal, and the master's first student to survive taking his first head, was trying to free the demon bound into mortal form. His face paled, and he sat up straight.  
  
"Teach?"  
  
"Where did you find this out…"  
  
"My friend, Ralph, he told me."  
  
"You know what this means?"  
  
"We have to kill Methos? Uh, teach, we're good, but not that good. I like having my head firmly attached to my neck." Nev shuddered. "He was Death, man! The leader of the Four Horsemen! He's been training with that Highlander for a few years, too. He probably forgot more dirty tricks than you've ever learned…"  
  
Samedes flinched. He'd been born well after the Horsemen finished their rampage, and had been the master's last student. Pamereh had been a formidable fellow, and he'd taught Samedes everything he'd had time for. But he'd quite firmly warned that Methos had forgotten his past, and gained new and deadly skills in the Game.  
  
"If we challenge Methos, we'll die. And it will all be for naught." Samedes whispered. "We'll have to find a way to separate them. Given a few years, he'll forget her. She's only a mortal, he can't know the importance of the curse…" 


	8. The Lion Stalks the Serpent

(Pout) I've only got one steady reviewer… (pout)  
  
Okay, I'm posting again, even if the reviews look like limp lettuce on the plate… pooh (can you tell I'm bitter here? I'm starving, peoples! My literary genius will wither and fade away…)  
  
Consider all disclaimers in full effect. Wham. Not mine. I won't break 'em, promise  
  
Oh, yeah, immortaljedi… so when're you posting next? Thank you for reviewing, of course. And thank you for being so happy about it too!  
  
In the last chapter: An enemy was revealed. Hehehehehe… This one's a shorty, but it's important, so I can set things up, okies? Have patience. My fingers are half frozen in this horrid cold weather. Why won't it snow, danggit?!  
  
  
  
On the plane of mists, shadows swirled, and they spun, but they kept clear of the baneful red glow suffusing the darkness.  
  
The snake hissed its anger at the distance potential power sources kept from it. Not even tatters survived of the spirit it had last fed from. It reached, reached for the mind of the one who'd called it master, and chuckled. Did the poor Immortal know that this was no common Immortal he'd been taught by, but a demon, who possessed the minds of weak willed Immortals whenever his last body was slain?  
  
It had to succeed, and shape the Game, for the Victor, oh they would be getting a prize they did not expect. The right Victor would die in his mind, and all the power would be the demons.  
  
Arrashareth hissed with delight. Three lives. One, a priest. One, a teacher. The last, as a deadly warrior.  
  
The hiss turned angry. It would not fall to Connor MacLeod again! Nor would his foul cousin, the Champion of that pitiful Ahriman, have victory over him.  
  
The snake's hooded head was not a cobra's. Not so sacred, this horrible twisted parody of a cobra. But thje head dove deep into the plain's surface, and the tail flicked in a final spasm as it vanished into the ground.  
  
There was silence, and darkness. Whispers built, and shadows spun, and slowly crept forwards. These ghosts felt little pity for mortals, feeling only anger at their betrayal. But it was in them to feel pity for whatever poor creature would fall to the hooded serpent's strike.  
  
  
  
"Well, teach, in other news, the stocks are doing quite well." The cowboy said, setting a small portfolio before Samedes.  
  
The older Immortal, with his soft eyes, looked at the portfolio with interest. "I love this century."  
  
"Yeah. It has a lot of benefits." The cowboy mused. He didn't notice the sudden stiffness that crept into his teacher's spine, nor did he hear the hiss of satisfaction that slipped between those pearly white teeth. The cat lounging on the counter yowled and hissed, springing up to claw at the air in her owner's direction, before flying away in a leap of silky white flesh.  
  
Neville looked at Peaches. "Huh? Now what's got into her?" He started to turn back, and only just saw the glitter in Samedes' hand, and the glitter in those suddenly feral eyes. He lifted a single hand, but the sword sheered through the wrist as easily as it cut though the neck of the startled cowboy, all unknowing.  
  
Samedes' body laughed, but it was not the amused, rich baritone of the shop owner. This was a horrible fell laughter, quite in keeping with the smoky lightning whirling about the dead student's body. Quite in keeping with the storm which raged unchecked inside an empty store on a beautiful sunny day.  
  
  
  
"Shit. Definitely a Quickening." Oscar and Hardy were worried. Partners, they'd worked together for years. They were some of the best cops in the area. They were also some of the best Watchers.  
  
"This was Sam Reed's tea shop. A real one-man Starbucks." Hardy muttered.  
  
"And that's the cowboy, his student." Oscar glanced at the body of Neville Alexander MacFurgeson, head missing to the catastrophic storm that'd blown out all the windows, ignited the store, and ripped up the two cars parked in the lot outside.  
  
"Whatever this is, I don't like it." Hardy said. "Hey, it's a cat!"  
  
The white cat slinked up, purring, gray eyes glinting with knowledge beyond the grasp of mortal men.  
  
"Reed kept a cat, named Peaches."  
  
"Collar's missing…"  
  
"Do you blame it for loosing it in this mess?"  
  
Neither of them saw the bloody, half-charred body of the late, lamented Peaches. Or what was left of it. Something had gnawed on its body, and carved foul symbols into its pristine fur.  
  
Neither of them saw the angry, half-sympathetic glance the gray-eyed white cat threw at the body of Reed's faithful kitty, the guardian assigned him. The guardian who'd failed to keep the demons hooks from pulling the Immortal into the morass to which others had been lost before.  
  
  
  
There you go… chapter eight. Don't forget to R & R my other stories too, please… Thanks greatly. Especially you, immortaljedi, since I already know you're going to review it. Say, when are you posting next? 


	9. Enter the Court of the King

Disclaimers! Disclaimers! Disclaimers!  
  
Immortaljedi: Oh goodie! Thank you! As you command, madamousielle, it shall be done…  
  
Nancy: Well, actually, the evil's not in the pint sized package. The divine aid is in the pint-sized package. So go ahead and love this kitty. This one's going to do you proud.  
  
Kate: Yay! Two reviewers! I'm happy people now!  
  
The last scene was in a teashop, where Trouble happened, but the one we're most concerned with is picking up in the bookstore, where Methos and his Julia had discovered each other. I think it was chapter eight…. Sorry, no, it was seven. But anyway, consider this as picking up from there, then making a 'small' time jump. I'm having luck writing chapter twenty, but in between here and there, I'm not. So it's all bits and pieces strung together, this chapter…  
  
  
  
"At my service?" She quirked an eyebrow.  
  
"Of course." Methos shrugged. "But, when do you close?"  
  
"Not for five or six hours."  
  
"Can you meet me somewhere?"  
  
"Where would that be?"  
  
"My best friend's hotel room. He has a much more comfortable place than I…"  
  
The introductions were comfortably over, the small talk starting to fade away. Tension filled the air, Dawson and Duncan both telegraphing curiosity with their very body postures. Methos was startled when she gave a more complete introduction. Including about her peculiar many lives…  
  
"Why have you had so many lives?"  
  
She looked at Joe. "Because I was cursed."  
  
Duncan looked slightly offended. "Who could curse a lady?"  
  
"Lady? I weren't no lady. I was the Captain of the Temple Guard, in modern terms. I was a mean little bitch." She made a rude sound, and Methos checked the back of her neck for red. He failed to find any, but she did wink at him. "I was no stranger to killing, and sure as all no stranger to painful deaths. As for who would curse a lady, how about the teacher of an Immortal I just so happened to kill?"  
  
Duncan flinched.  
  
"As I recall, he was a young temple acolyte. He'd made the mistake of letting himself get publicly killed. Brained by a falling brick, I recall. When he came back to life, we called him demon. He was given to my men and I, and we basically tortured him to death. Let him run around in a circle, and each time cut at him. All we had were basically crude long knives and spears, but hey, they worked just fine. Stone, not metal. They hurt worse. We taunted the demon in Zakad's body, until at last, his head was chopped off, and the demon flew out." She shrugged. "No big deal, he wasn't very old. My mother knew his mother. She'd always said the sudden appearance of the baby had been a mite suspicious, but…"  
  
"How could you do that?"  
  
"I was a big fish. I understood the world and its rules. Beasts of the wild try to kill you, other people try to kill you because they follow the wrong god, you kill them first. People coming back from the dead after a rather messy death was not in the rules. It scared the shit out of us. Literally, in Lamech's case. He was so embarrassed, the poor boy." She chuckled. "Understand this, they had to be some of the first Immortals about. We hadn't started actual building. Mostly shaped mud bricks, and hide roof, for houses. Hunting, and we depended on migratory clans for a lot of our sustenance. We ate a lot of meat, for the day, so we were rather tall. Strangers considered me a giant, because as a temple guard, I was really well fed. Zakad's return from the dead was not by the rules, therefore it was evil."  
  
The Immortals both flinched, and Methos looked definitely unsettled.  
  
"His teacher, one of the male priests, cursed me, then, 'May you live and die, and always return! May you never find the Everlasting Peace, or be rewarded with Eternity, and may it be so forever! May each life have such torment as Zakad felt! Let your soul be bound to earth and mortality until the heavens fall from the sky!' He cried it out and it felt like nails were being driven into me, like spears were thrown, pinning my shadow and my soul to the earth, as irrevocable as a birth. He was driven out that evening, with sticks and stones, because he'd dared to curse me."  
  
"Why were you so important?"  
  
"One, I was the best fighter about. Two, my father and mother were basically rather powerful traders. The kind that evolved into kings and queens when our villages of mud and stick became towns and cities. I was very pale, too, seen as blessed by the sun god for my hair, and skin, and eyes."  
  
Her skin was a light tawny gold, and her hair that glorious brown. Her eyes, well…  
  
"Somehow, I can see that."  
  
"I was scarred by the lioness' cub." She drew her hand, three fingers spread, across her face. "Long and dignified warrior's marks. The lion, therefore, was my protector. That was from my father's people. He'd been somewhere to the north, and believed in totem spirits. His was the vulture. Mother's, well, hers was the ancestor of the impala deer." She chuckled. "Father had hair of shock red, and skin that was as red as a boiled lobster. Must have been very fair skinned. Mother, she was your average person, with mahogany skin, and black hair."  
  
"What happened, after the curse?"  
  
"First, the High Priestess told me only one of his students or he himself would ever be able to break the curse. Second, not two weeks later, we were attacked by a bunch of nomads. Dirty, hairy smelly bastards, they swarmed us in unimagined numbers. The entire temple complex and town numbered a hundred, perhaps, and they more than tripled that number. My last memory was of being backed up against a wall, shaggy ugly brutes laughing. I was already pinned by a spear through the shoulder." She shuddered. "This is freaking me out. First person narratives for a person dead?"  
  
Methos laid a comforting hand on her shoulder. He spoke in ancient Celtic. "There, there, little sister. I will chase away any demons that come for you."  
  
She smiled up at him through watery eyes, and leaned into his hug.  
  
"Methos, how can you trust her?" Duncan said, flatly. "She's a Hunter."  
  
"Hunter Gatherer, actually, in the old days, when we were still wearing furs." She lifted her head, and looked straight at Duncan. "And he can trust me because he's the only way I have of ever being uncursed."  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"You see, with what was said, Methos has to be the last student of Shareth." She said. "And I'm not one to run around indiscriminately killing people in this life. In a couple of them, oh yeah. I ran around doing things that would make your skin shrivel off your bones, and your eyes roll around in their sockets. Things that would make your blood boil, and your hands twitch to be about my throat. In lives gone past. I think I've paid for them, though, in the deaths I've died."  
  
Duncan shifted nervously.  
  
"How many lives have you lived?"  
  
"I'd be reborn within weeks of the previous death, go through the nine months, and then, bam, I'm a new life. If I actually counted them? Well, if you start at about 10,000BC, and average a life of about 22 years each time…" She shrugged, "Too many. Far, far too many."  
  
"You're a very cold woman." Methos said, mildly.  
  
She gave him a look filled with soul. "No. I started off as an ignorant savage, and then I was a woman in torment, wracked by pains I couldn't properly feel. And right now, I'm a woman going steadily, and rapidly insane."  
  
"Insane?"  
  
"Personalities, belief systems, cultures, languages, they all pull and tear on me, and I'm not even certain who I am anymore. I've put a large poster on my wall, with my name written boldly on it, because when I wake, sometimes I'm Mahgast, or Kumara, or Moiya, or Madranaste. I'm not who I'm supposed to be. Something bad is happening, and I'm going to be the first victim." Her voice was hollow, her eyes suddenly gaunt. The ripples of the past that filled her vanished, for a moment, and they noted thin ribs, and deep shadows under her eyes. 


	10. All the World's a Stage

All disclaimers apply. I repeat, all disclaimers apply. Also applying the pleas of forgiveness for a late post.  
  
  
  
The wind whistled fiercely past his ears, and he hefted the stolen knife. The bruises from the stones had already healed, as quickly as death had left him. No one could tell he'd been driven from his village except by the tattered remnants of his clothes. He fingered the fabric idly, and sighed. I really should get something new. I look awful, and I'd be driven out of a demon's camp for how awful it looks. But, it's the last thing I have of mother.  
  
He stopped fingering the holes, and looked down at the rough cloth, and the dirt encrusting it, and he wiped away a single tear. Then he shivered, roughly, and looked about his crude little camp. Very crude. He was musing where he could steal himself some of the comforts of home, when he got a sudden and painful headache. His first and immediate reaction was to dunk it into the small creek, not that much of his head got wet at all, and he only looked up at the crunch of something large moving into the clearing.  
  
Leading the gathered storm was a short man, with dark nut brown skin, and black hair. He wore strange clothing, and he carried a long knife, sharp and golden hued.  
  
Methos backed up as the man approached. He spoke roughly, unused to the language. Like he was a demon speaking the languages of the day, instead of the languages of the dark.  
  
"As weak as you are, I will take your head, and your power will be mine." The man laughed. He stepped closer.  
  
Methos was trapped up against a rock, and looking nervously at the long knife. Then he snapped. Pushed too far, too long, he charged the stranger, and his little knife, sent from his home, sticking out of his side, slashed at the chest, and then stabbed in at the gut.  
  
The stranger danced back, and they circled each other, each feinting with the weapons they used, neither trained in the use of the knife or the stranger's short sword.  
  
Methos had one advantage. He knew this territory he'd been sleeping in, and he unconsciously navigated it as they circled each other, as his opponent staggered, and left openings.  
  
Until his knife made a sweeping cut, and opened the stranger from hip to shoulder. The stranger staggered back, his grip on the hilt slipping, and Methos took the chance, diving in to drive his knife to the hilt into the stranger's heart.  
  
It was over, as quickly as that. He stared down at the body. He'd killed animals, plenty of those, mostly the small vermin which insisted on getting into the tent and biting people. Like they'd bitten his wife, and killed her, before they ever really married.  
  
But when the dead body breathed again, and began to move, he picked up a large rock, and smashed it just as he would one of those vermin. The sickening crunch and squish of the brain made Methos grimace.  
  
For good measure, he used the longer knife to chop the fellow up into bits and pieces.  
  
Mist swirled around his ankles, crackling and sparking like the fire, with little baby lightning bolts.  
  
  
  
Methos sat bolt upright in bed, wide awake. "Shit! What is it about that girl that brings the forgotten past to mind?" He rubbed his eyes, and grimaced at the bright red numbers of the clock. Two in the morning. Just four hours after the party ended, and everyone went home. Methos sat up, and grumbled. Sitting primly at the foot of his bed was a shadow, which moved into the light with dignity and grace. It was a white cat, with gray eyes, and it brought to mind images of ancient Egyptian cats. The fur glowed with an unearthly light in the moonlight.  
  
"A cat. Why is there a cat in my apartment?" Methos wondered aloud. "Kitty, shoo. As much as like cats…"  
  
The cat's gaze didn't waver, and the mouth didn't move, but he clearly heard a female's gentle voice, raspy and rough like a cat's might be. "The feeling's mutual, Methos. We like you. That's why I'm here."  
  
"It's sleep. That's right, I'm still dreaming, and this cat's a figment of my imagination."  
  
"Figment?" The voice sounded faintly offended, as the cat rose and began to stretch, kneading her claws through the sheet into his leg. He yelped, and glared at the cat. "Still think I'm a figment, Methos?"  
  
"Cat's don't talk."  
  
"Cats don't. Divine messengers do. Suffice it to say, our roles have changed these days. In the old days, you'd have worshipped me." The cat licked one paw, like a dainty lady. "I'm here to help. I know, I know, I'm a messenger of Bast. But I was the only one who could slip through without setting off the alarms Arrashareth put up to protect itself."  
  
"Arrashareth?"  
  
"The demon who's trying to rule the universe, by corrupting the Game." Bast's messenger said, gray eyes glowing. "You might want to get all the warriors together, Immortal. The game is afoot."  
  
  
  
  
  
Finally, after a long wait, I posted chapter ten! My utmost apologies for the wait. Murphy seems to enjoy riding my derriere. 


	11. Dark Is The Soul That Lives In Shadows

Disclaimers apply: I don't own 'em, they belong to somebody else, I'm just playing with them because silence means assent. Don't sue me, if you're an owner of said ideas, I'm deep enough in debt as it is.  
  
Cal, immortaljedi, and ej- thanks for reading and reviewing.  
  
Cal, thanks for looking me up. I really appreciate it, and I appreciate the review even more!  
  
ej, you're forgiven, as long as you review once in awhile, and you're honest about what you say. That means that yes, you can tell me I suck if you like. (To all non-reviewers out there: Hint! Hint!)  
  
Immortaljedi - as always, a very special thanks to one of my select list of very favorite authors. Especially since you're the only one who reviews my stories too! Thanks a bunch!  
  
  
  
Last chapter: Methos had a dream. The dream involved the first time he'd taken a head. After the dream, he wakes up. He meets a cat. Cat talks. Cat tells him to call everyone.  
  
This chapter: Fun stuff happens. But only for a little tiny snippet, eh?  
  
Chapter Eleven  
  
Dawson lowered himself to the sofa, and sighed. "I hate mornings."  
  
Methos laughed. One hand reached out to stroke the cat's head. He'd argued with her last night, and eventually gone back to sleep. They'd planned on meeting this morning at ten anyway, so why make poor Dawson and Julia suffer? Duncan was already here, examining the collection of ancient statues, urns, and books on one wall of the apartment. The small talk passed back and forth as they waited for the mortal lady.  
  
At fifteen minutes after ten, Methos frowned, and called her apartment. No one answered, and he left a message on the answering machine. Then he tried her shop, and got no answer there, either. He hung up, and sighed. "Why is it some people never have cell phones? She has to be on her way. I didn't get her at her apartment, and the shop is closed on Sundays."  
  
Unnoticed by anyone, the cat jumped off the counter, and wandered into his bedroom, where it vanished into a pool of light pouring through the shades. Two minutes later, the cat galloped out of the bedroom, speaking. "Bad news, Methos. She's gone, and Arrashareth's stink is all over her apartment. I told you, call them, but you said, no, they need the sleep. Now look what's happened." The cat sniffed, audibly, and sat down primly, as Dawson and Duncan looked about, wondering where the voice was coming from.  
  
"What do you mean, gone?" Methos ignored the stares of disbelief from the Watcher and Immortal as the cat spoke, and he responded.  
  
"I mean gone. There's a mess, looks like our little lioness fought before she fell. And the psychic stink all over the place smells just like our demon friend." The cat's tail lashed back and forth as he met its eyes.  
  
"Oh shit. This isn't good. No, this isn't good at all." Methos head shook, as his skin quivered slightly, and  
  
  
  
Elsewhere:  
  
The woman was unconscious, tied and bound, and marked by bruises and a few cuts. One deep looking slash on her leg was bleeding sluggishly, as she was wrapped in a carpet, to be carried from the van in the parking garage into the building above.  
  
The people moved with abrupt jerks, like they weren't under their own power. An impartial observer's skin would have crawled, knowing something was wrong with those men.  
  
It was a quick trip up the elevator to the apartment, where she was tossed like a sack of grain into the windowless room, formerly an office, now a bare and empty cell.  
  
And the glyph marked men, all three of them, knelt before Arrashareth, enthroned upon the sofa, every cushion in the place laid about him. Heavy curtains walled out all light coming from outside. The dark shadows, and the dead silent weight of the air were fitting for the atmosphere.  
  
The demon's eyes glinted at them, a strange red hued brown, and he observed the quickly made golden necklaces that controlled them. They were fighting it, and that was not well for his plans. But their leader, he had come willingly.  
  
Arrashareth paused, thinking of that leader of men, his small gang, horribly outnumbered, but as insane and hopefully as dangerous as any he'd ever met. A suitable lackey. He gestured, and from the bedroom door stepped the man.  
  
Fully six feet tall, and as wiry and rail thin as a rat, his own black eyes were as empty of all human compassion as the demon's own. "Yo, Demon man?"  
  
"Rapheal." Arrashareth purred, chuckling deep in his throat at his own lackey bearing the name of a powerful, if new come, opponent to the demons. "I need you to find me three virgins on the edge of reaching womanhood. I also need someplace quiet, where people will not notice… a few screams and some bloodstains on the floor."  
  
"Sure, boss man. What are we gonna do with them?"  
  
"The virgins? They will die. And I will use the life they could have made, but never did, to help me destroy those feeble creatures who dare to think they'll oppose me." His hands gestured lightly, waving as if at a bothersome fly.  
  
The human and the demon chuckled, a low laugh. The one pet that had belonged to the owner of this apartment, an already terrified parakeet, fell off its perch, every feather standing up with the atavistic terror that had burst it's little heart. And the three who weren't wholly bound whimpered and crouched a little lower, skin crawling with fear. 


	12. An Interlude for Darkness

                Disclaimers:  They aren't mine.  I don't own them.  I don't have money, either, so go sue someone else, hey?

                Author's Note: When writing scary stories, make sure you write them in the daytime, with lots of sunshine and birdsong.  Because otherwise, you get nightmares.

I'd like to thank my reviewers, but about all, I want to thank immortaljedi.  Dear pooka, if I didn't know you were out there waiting on an update, I'd never finish this.  I've many chapters to go, but I'm going to finish it.

                For all of those I scared in the last chapter, my apologies, but, hey, I did rate it R.  This isn't too bad.  It's the threat of danger which makes it so dreadful, no?  Besides, he's a demon!  They're supposed to be scary!

                This chapter is dedicated to Flamehair, the Lady Kasumi.  She's my best friend, and she's the one who booted my rear over the writer's block nightmares…  Not that she bothers to R&R my stories when they get posted, no…  Sorry, a little vitriolic there, huh?  But anyway, this is dedicated to her, since she's the one who told me to quite worrying about historical accuracy, I was about as accurate as a Jerry Springer show was non-violent, and to just "bloody well write the damned thing!  It's not a bloody research paper, after all!"

                Last Chapter: Scary stuff.  Arrashareth kidnapped Methos' Julia, oh no!  And the cat lets Duncan and Joe know it can talk!  And a poor little parakeet was scared to death!  If you really wanna know, go read it again.  Don't forget to review!!!

Chapter Twelve 

                Duncan leaned back in his chair, and sighed.  "Well, cat, if this demon thing has her, how do we get her back?"

                The cat glared at him.  "I don't know.  He's no fool, he knows we'd be after him."

                "How is 'we'?"  Methos leaned back against the wall.

                "The Lion Totem, and the Cat Totem.  Arrashareth's lesser demons take the forms of rats."  The cat hissed.  "I'm sure you know in the old faiths, the sun lion hated the earth snake, and cats and rats have a mutual antipathy of course."  The cat lifted a paw and licked it.  "He can't see the sunlight.  It burns his flesh.  And that's a pain he'll recover from, as all Immortals recover.  It'll hurt, at the least."

                Joe stiffened.  "What do you mean?"

                "Arrashareth may only come to the world if it takes an Immortal body.  It tends to be fond of males, so we call it a he.  Its dark powers overwhelm the Immortal's Quickening, and it becomes the Immortal, retaining memories and such.  As far as we can tell, the Immortal is still alive within them, which is why you survived taking his head, Methos."

                Methos stared.  "Survived?"

                "You took the Immortal inhabited by Arrashareth, just as Connor MacLeod took the Immortal who had fallen to the demon.  As such, you have a key insight into the demon, without the peril of having your mind shaped by its influence."  The cat looked at him.  "If the Immortal behind it hadn't been there, you'd have gotten a demon directly into your head.  You, Methos, would only be the face Arrashareth would wear.  He's a son of a bitch, and he's not easy to kill.  The first Immortal he took happened to be a priest to the Goddess of Immortality.  I don't think she's recovered from the shock his blow gave her yet.  Poor thing."

"There's a Goddess of Immortality?"  Methos blurted.

"You're too young to know her, Methos."  The cat said.  "For that matter, so am I.  She was apparently beautiful, and kind, and had created Immortals to be keepers of the History, and Defenders against the demons and wild beasts out there.  Some of that still remains, witness Ahriman's need to face a Champion."  The cat sighed.

"So what happened to the rest of it?"

"Arrashareth's attack directly into the mind of a goddess who wasn't prepared.  Always be prepared."  The cat recited that last bit like it was a religion.  "He tainted the well of Immortal souls.  All Immortals are partly tainted by him, partly wrong in their makeup.  Otherwise there'd be no Game, and no Gathering.  If we could purify it, we would, but she's still out of it, and no god messes with anyone else's business.  But Arrashareth made THIS the Lion Totem's business when he struck down the original, Mayana.  She was protected by the Lion Totem.  Since he's pretty much my ancestor, in the way of god relations, I answer to him.  And Arrashareth had made this doubly my business by the slaughter of one of my servants."  The cat spoke as cold as ice.

                "You know about Immortal's beginnings?"  Methos asked, trying to dance around a subject which had the cat clearly infuriated.  He wasn't that fond of cat claws on his leg.

                "Not really.  There wasn't a cat until a while later.  If you want that kind of information, you'd have to talk to the Lion, and she's been running around as a mortal for the last thirty years."

                "What?"  Joe blinked.

                "Gods get bored, you know.  The Lion Totem wasn't needed, ergo, he took a mortal form.  Chose to be a female, this time.  Scares the whey out of me, since she and Wolf are running around and causing havoc."  The cat's eyes rolled with exasperation.  "Can't ever trust an Elder Totem.  Trouble, that's what they are."

                "Is Arrashareth a totem?"  Joe asked, sitting forwards a little.

                "No!"  The cat hissed, and leapt backwards.  "Never!  The Totem of Snakes would die from disgust, if she were still alive…"

                "She's dead?"

                "Well, yes."  The cat nodded.  "Apollo killed her, you know, and did a lousy job of taking her place.  This isn't getting us anywhere, you know!"

                "Do you know which Immortals were influenced by the demon?"  Joe asked, softly.

                "Indeed, I do.  My people have been keeping tabs on them, and it was this, uh, owner of a diner.  He took a cowboy's head."

                "Do you know names?"

                "Samedes, and Neville.  Neville lost his head when Arrashareth came in.  Where he went from there, I have no clue, since he killed my disciple, and did a black art which stopped the lives from going any further.  She was only on her sixth life, too!"  The cat was bristled as large as possible.

                "So, all I have to do is find Samedes."  Joe said, sitting back.  "Once we find him, we've got Arrashareth, and one of these stalwart gentlemen takes his head."

                "No can do, Watcher."  The cat said, bitterly.  "Both these gentlemen have a fragment of his power in them.  Which means if they take his head, he takes them."

                Joe sat back, as Duncan frowned.  "Who was the one Connor took?"

                "The Kurgan."  The cat said, voice flat.  "Arrashareth is a pain, an annoyance, but in that case, he only made horrible worse.  He learned a lot from the Immortal known as the Kurgan."

                The three men looked at each other, identical looks on their faces.

                Joe put voice to it.  "So, in other words, we're up shit creek, and our paddle's gone missing."

                The cat looked at them in turn, eyes meeting Joe's at the last.  "That about sums it up, yes."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

                Well, that's chapter twelve.  Whewph!  A load off my chest.  I've got eek… no more chapters before I have to deal with the scary man again.  So, I'd better make sure I write that threatening chapter on my day off, huh?  At about seven in the morning, too….  Hey, you know, if you review, you give me more incentive to finish this faster….  Hint, hint.  Come on, make yourself feel virtuous!  Make me feel happy!  Be a good reader!  Improve your critical reading skills!  Model yourself off of the exemplary Immortal Jedi!  My frequent reviewers might earn nicknames, you know…  hint, hint…  R&R… good for the soul…

Just as a moral side note: Do not, I repeat, do not let your friends get drunk at a dance club.  Then you have to play drunk watch, and scare off all the handsome lads….  Bohager's rocks, man!  Booze, boys, and foam parties!  And all you lads and lasses under twenty-one, no booze for you!  Just drunk boys… easy pickings… and drunk girls, of course… and the foam pit… ah, yes, the foam pit, and the loud music, and the men… oh, the men…  wet tee-shirt contests work both ways…  No wait, why am I telling you this?  Eek!  Shame on me!  Many, many slaps of the wrist!  Down, girl, down!  (Yes, my attempts at a life get in the ways of my writing… give me fertile ideas, but get in the way, hey?)


	13. Age and Treachery Win over Beauty and Yo...

First note: This chapter thirteen is not the one I wanted to publish. The further revised version was lost, along with two other stories, when I forgot to make sure the diskette was out of puppy reach. Disks look pretty awful when they've been mauled by a small dog.

Disclaimer: Not mine. I'm just playing with them. And if you ask nicely, I'll let you play with the ones that are mine! Hey, Pooka, can I play with your Methos? Please? I promise it won't be horror!

No chapter summary this time, I'm having a hard enough time forcing myself to write this thing.

Thank you, my dear delightful reviewers. I live for your praise. It is my meat and drink. Which means when I slack, I starve, but hey, let's forgive and forget, hmm? It's not like I really wanted to write this chapter. It scares me.

So on with the show. Here is, without further ado:

****

Chapter Thirteen

"Fitting." Arrashareth growled, his eyes surveying the hidden place they'd found for him. Once in its life, it had been part of a sewer. But as times changed, and city plans changed, so did its purpose, from abandoned sewer, to forgotten hole in the ground, to sleeping place for homeless drifters. They'd been chased out ten or so years ago, when the wall collapsed, opening it up into a cellar next door.

The owners of that house had bricked up the original entrance. They'd seen potential in the little chamber, beyond use as a flophouse by the refuse of society. The owners of that house had to put it to other uses. Better, in the eyes of the demon, worse in the eyes of those who'd died within this room.

Their screams remained trapped within the stone, disturbed and strengthened by the demon within them. New screams had joined them. Plain unfinished brick, with the mortar stained black by soot, filth, and blood, it did not show the latest of horrors to be enacted in this room.

It had not taken his leader of lesser evils long to find the three virgins. A Catholic girl's school was nearby. They ranged from eight to the oldest being eleven, and all gave off the energies of a girl child, full of potential.

They had no potential any more. Rapheal returned, from his errand of disposal, and with three men whose eyes were empty, full of the darkness. Lights danced deep within them, lights which begged and pleaded for release, faint lights, dying lights. Soon they'd vanish entirely, as smoothly as the men now moved.

"Bring me the girl. Let me see this woman who is that fool reborn again." He smiled, coldly.

She struggled some, but she'd struggled when she was taken, they said.

Her leg bled, and Arrashareth breathed in deeply. She was a woman, full of all the power and magic that granted her, and untouched by any man. What a sweet aroma it was, combined with her fear. The sweet bouquet of blood merely added to the beauty of her weakness, to her helplessness in his clutches. She could do nothing, nothing at all, beyond useless attempts at a freedom she'd never really had.

"So, chit." He glared at her. "You think that you can escape my clutches? You are my tool. You will live again and again, until you kneel before me and beg for release."

Those eyes stared at him, so frightened. She was shaking. Insanity danced within them, a delight to the demon. "So you go insane, from the voices in your mind? From things you wish to deny, and cannot?" His left hand twirled in her hair, so long and rich, and tugged sharply, causing pain to flicker across that so pale face. "Loss of blood making you feel like fainting, temple guard? Well, that must be stopped then."

His hand touched her thigh, and the smell of scorching flesh rose, as her face crossed in a grimace of pain. "What do you want, demon?" Her challenge was phrased in the language so old, so forgotten, that it had not been spoken since a tribal trading village fell to the hands of raiders, when Sumer and Akkad had just begun the growth to become kingdoms.

"I want you dead." He smiled. "But I want Methos, as well, and Connor MacLeod. I want the Immortals who took my body slave's life, and left me stranded in the World Beyond. And you will bring them to me."

"As if." She retorted in English. "I'd rather die."

Her eyes were bright with challenge and fear, and tears of pain as well.

"You will, although you will live for now, until the Immortals come searching for you, come searching to find their poor little lost lamb, who knows so much. They will come, and they will die."

"Don't get your kicks out of watching girls die, you have to taunt someone you've had in your power seven thousand years? What's the point? Why do you do this?"

"Because you scream and writhe, and try to be strong, mortal child. Because your mind is not built to cope with this, and insanity seizes you. Because I can."

She made a little breathy squeak as his hand, leaving a burn scar where a wound had been before, rose, and sharp nails traced a gentle cut around her neck. His other hand clutched the hair, holding her head up, exposing that soft neck, that length of weakness and vulnerability.

"You so want to die, don't you? You want to make an end of this eternal coming and going. To the memories. If you die, you come to my world, child, and never will you be free from me. Never, ever, in all the lives this world will live, will you escape me."

Those eyes, they burned with fire, and they hated him. Golden orbs, like the sun, or like a lion's eyes.

"The Lion Totem is gone, you know. He can't protect you anymore, although he stopped protecting you when you were slain, so long ago." He mentioned, smiling at those eyes so like her vanished protector.

They burned even yet, hiding her fear, hiding the terror, until he smiled.

And the scream was covered by his laugh, full of the assurance that she'd fail , and that victory, in the end, would belong to the one who cheated to get it.

After all, age and treachery will vanquish youth and beauty any day.


	14. Girls Rule, Demons and Flunkies Drool

Alright. Alright. I'm writing the next chapter. Since the last one was so scary, and I don't want to have to deal with Arrashareth again, not for a little while, I've decided that if I'll be posting this All Hallow's Eve, I'll be posting something uplifting.

Uplifting. Right. I can do this.

Pooka, as always, your reviews keep me going, and your stories keep Ghosts from eating me alive.

Shade, nice to see you. See, I won't scare you this time.

Slef, see, I told you I'd post. Told you.

I had to juggle the schedule, and move chapters about, but hey, the story can grow under it own power, too, right?

****

Ghosts of the Past

Chapter Fourteen

It was silent, for now. The demon was no where to be seen, but the laugh of his men and the whimpers of some poor creature were audible right outside the door. Maria pulled herself upright with her hands and measured the confines of her cell with limping paces.

"I've dealt with worse." She said, softly, under her breath. "I may not have been me, but I've dealt with worse."

She was in an old storage room, she figured. There were the rusting remnants of the shelves, which made some idea tingle in the back of her head, but she couldn't figure it out yet.

Light was coming from somewhere, a small chink which gave her a reason to hope.

"God's breath, my leg hurts. He had to burn it closed, didn't he? Pain in the ass. I'm gonna feed him his own liver." She muttered to herself. Then she paused. "Maybe Methos and his buddies will come and bust me out. I shouldn't count on it, but I can hope."

She finally found the chink of light, coming from a little above head height. She dragged the chair over, muffling down on a scream of pain as she stepped on a spar from a shelf. Her ankle twisted as the spar rolled beneath her foot, and she came down hard.

There was no way to stop that scream that poured out, and she clutched her ankle, whimpering.

The door creaked open, and a shadow filled the light coming from there.

"What was she doing?" Said the rough voice of Rapheal, and he shouldered the goon aside to look into the cell. He glared at her, then smirked. "Poor little wounded bird, just trying to move the chair further from the door. Go ahead. It won't help you any, come sunset, little girl. We're going to rip your wings off so you can't fly away."

The door shut, and she heard the distinct sound of a lock clicking.

"Right. Got to get the hell out of here." She said, muttering.

The chair let her peek out a crack in the mortar. Someone had bricked over the opening years ago, rather than replace the broken window. Cheaply and poorly done, too, if the mortar was falling out already. Not the same sturdy heavy stone construction in the rest of the room and basement.

That broken bit of shelving gave her an idea, and she lowered herself gently to the floor, testing her weight on her ankle.

It held, but it hurt. No less different from any of the other wounds which marked her. She found the bit of metal easily.

Scratch. Scratch. Scratch. Scratch.

The mortar flaked slowly away, bit by bit, although the spar had long stopped being invisible in the dark, it's edges now gleaming silver in the slender whisper of light. Sheer hard work piled upon an already exhausted frame, but the only other option was staying here. That, she knew, was a fate worse than death.

Her ankle throbbed, from being stood upon, and the burn scar throbbed, from being stretched. Other small cuts and nicks and burns stung, as she labored.

Sweat and blood and tears. A main component in any true labor, and in this case it was no different. Her blood mingled with the tears and sweat that ran so freely, impeded only by the tattered rags of what had been her night shirt.

At least she was mostly decent, and wouldn't be flashing the street anything.

One brick popped out, and she smiled into the sunshine which poured into the room. She knew this street. That knowledge impacted with her desire to get the hell out to lend her more energy, working at a feverish speed to get the bricks the hell out of the way, so she could squeeze out. It might cost her skin, and it might hurt, but out was about three thousand percent better than in.

Especially when the allies were out there, not two doors down.

Elsewhere in the city:

Joe was on the phone with the local Watchers, trading shop news. Duncan was being very Japanese.

Methos resisted the urge to kick the Highlander where he sat contemplating. Trying to come up with a way to find, and then free, a girl who was hidden away by a demon so nasty they couldn't take his head was not the easiest thing in the world.

The cat was off somewhere, trying to find the Lion Totem and see if the mortal form of the great and powerful semi-deity could help any. Maybe the Wolf Totem would even lend a hand.

He gritted his teeth and went back to pacing. Aside from a splash about a gang found mangled in their hide out, there was nothing to be seen on anything vaguely demonic. Except maybe the local Church of Satanists was holding a first annual raffia doll roast. Whole families were invited to come, bring the hair of their worst enemy, and let the enemy taste the fire of their hate. It was sick, bizarre, and you'd bet nine to one, the Christian fanatics would start a riot in the area.

Methos twitched at that one. People were nuts. Absolutely bonkers.

The cat streaked into the room, like her tail was on fire. "She's loose!"

"What?" Methos stared at the beast like it had grown another head.

"We didn't reckon with her own determination to get out." The cat looked incredibly proud. "Of course, there's the little matter that she's only got one brick out of the window out, and it's already noon. If you can get there, you can get her out."

The Highlander came out of his meditation when Joe thwacked him with the cane. "Joe?"

"I've always wanted to do that. Come on, Mac. Methos' cat found her."

"She's not mine!"

"I'm not his!" The chorus was said, annoyed glances leveled at Dawson.

"Did you find the totems?"

"No. I found her. Better, isn't it?"

The drive was half-way across the city.

Back at Maria:

She was whistling, hoping that they heard her. It was her favorite song, and her friends knew it well. Sure enough, she heard their voices.

"Rita, do you hear Ree?" Red's voice asked, sounding very upset.

"Yeah. Yeah, I do." Rita said, and she sounded almost hopeful. "You think the creeps that kidnapped her brought her to this area?"

"Yes, they did! Now get me the hell out of here!" She hissed, hoping that the guards' own laughs and the creature's poor screams covered her voice. Her hand and arm could just squeeze through the two brick opening, and it wasn't long before she felt familiar hands touch her own.

"Honey, anyone watching you?" Red crouched, and she met those familiar green eyes with relief. Still in uniform. She must have just gotten off shift.

"Yes. Four men. They answer to a really creepy guy who's definitely one of those folks the Satanists try and put on a pedestal." She said. "One's a short but solidly built fellow, two are fairly average, and the last is Hulk Hogan in size and bulk, and sheer muscle mass. The creepy guy, I have no bloody clue where the hell he is. Red, get me out of this!"

Red stood back, and nodded, as Rita began to pull at the bricks from her side.

The mortar was weaker where the weather had been beating at it, the bricks came loose in her hands.

Red was on the phone. "She looks like she's almost loose now. I'll be taking her to my house, to do some first aid, and get her something clean to wear."

If there was one thing Margarita De Salva was good at, it was using her strength to her advantage. She had Maria's hands in her own, and was bracing her weight.

Maria's lip was bleeding, but she hadn't screamed. "Alice Evelyn McDonough, I owe you one. Same with you, Rita."

"Sure thing, doll. Let's get you into Red's place." Rita lifted her, and pain reflected in those brown eyes, meeting Maria's own. "Shit, he really worked you over, didn't he, Ree? Don't worry, doll. You're not going back into his hands. Red's co-worker type goons are coming to bust those bastards."

Red smiled, and winked. "Yep. My very own goons. I'm gonna have to take pictures you know. Evidence. So we can put that bastard and his henchmen in jail until my dog sings an aria in tune."

"That'll never happen." Rita smirked.

"I know. I don't want them out of jail. Ever." Red was visibly angry. Part and parcel of her Irish heritage, and her flaming red hair. "Nobody screws with my friends and gets away with it."

Maria smiled, and in the delight at being back with her friends she could almost forget how hurt she was. Almost. The injuries tended to keep reminding her.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There, see? I promised I'd post for Halloween, so I posted! Hah!


	15. There is Nothing to Fear, But Fear Himse...

Disclaimer: Not mine. Nope. Highlander isn't mine. But these bad guys are, and a few of the good guys. Not that you'll see the good guys for this little shorty. Gotta get the bad stuff out of the way, no?  
  
Aside from that, let me actually let you read the story.

Chapter Fifteen

  
  
Rapheal flinched, and swallowed deeply as dead eyes bored into his own. A hand, impossibly cool, touched his chin, ever so gently.

            "Man. You tell me that my prey, my chosen bait, has escaped?"

He nodded his head as much as that hand would allow. Arrashareth's own eyes held nothing but contempt for him.

Not unlike the drug lords that he'd dealt with before, or his own eyes. But even they still held a flicker of color, still held something of the human they'd once been. There was nothing left of the man whose body now formed a home for the Immortal. Nothing at all. 

His lackeys, the poor grunts, already laid, broken dolls, except for Jon, who was lucky enough to get busted by the police. State cops, and the FBI, and city cops, all in this great angry muddle.

They were lucky that he'd gone, with his two best goons, to report the loss of the girl, and their headquarters. 

Well, maybe not lucky, in that it was costing them their lives.  Jail time, and the judge, would have been better than listening to the choked screams of men he's come to rely on.  Stupid men, yes, mere pawns, but they were his.  And they were dead.

"Not only do you tell me that, which I do not like hearing." That silky smooth voice was chilling and painful.  It was filled not with scorn, or condemnation, but with a remote hollowness which made the last of Rapheal's innocence cry for forgiveness.  Plea for mercy.

The hand touched his throat, and grasped it, tight, but not tight enough to cut off air or blood. 

"You tell me that the location you had found for me, the temple consecrated to my purpose by blood and agony, and virgin's screams, is in the possession of a bunch of notorious do-gooders, some of whom are glowing like mages?" Now some of the disdain he'd expected filled the voice, the icy hint of anger etching into him, like the bite of a winter wind, carrying his death.

            He could barely manage a squeak, as he was lifted off the floor, and he looked desperately into Arrashareth's eyes, begging, pleading for mercy, without breath belonging to him. 

            His voice was crushed beneath that powerful fist. Rapheal scrabbled for air as ruby fire flared in those lifeless eyes, and small blue stars burst into his brain. But against the demon's strength, there was nothing.  Against a demon like this, not even the Prince of Hell had anything which could stand. Blue lightning ran dancing fires, the edges of the storm, the black clouds which descended on Rapheal like a thunderstorm, sent from God.  Death.  The end of everything.

            Blackness overwhelmed him, like the blackness of Arrashareth's eyes.   A black so deep, so overwhelming, even the night was considered the break of day against it.  No cave so deep on this earth had every held anything like it.  Nothing existed inside the storm, and neither did Rapheal, as he was swept up into the onrushing winds.

            "Were it not for the fact that you are still unlearned, I would be furious with you."

            The cold voice greeted him when pain rushed through him, and he clutched his throat. Alive? He'd have sworn his throat was crushed. That he'd died. But he was alive. 

            "You are such an accomplished amateur I forget that you have yet to learn much beyond baby steps." Arrashareth's voice was still talking. 

            He sat up, and stared at the demon. "I died." He said, weakly. "I thought I did."

            "Make no mistake about it. You did die." Arrashareth chuckled, toying with a single green feather from the floor. "You can die again, but you won't stay down. You're one of mine. My chosen warriors. Oh, your soul was made by that fool, but you, you were born with my taint in your soul, and little purity remaining. You are my creature, and through you, and others, I will conquer this world. Mortals will be crushed beneath my feet." 

            Rapheal smiled.  Here, here was a man who held the power he needed, and here was an advantage far greater than any he had ever seen before… Even the bruja of the Mexican gangs would not dare to mess with his boss.

            "Those still mostly pure call themselves Immortals. They engage in a Game, following certain rules. They have mentors, and students. I have not the time to teach you as they teach their students." Arrashareth stood, and that fierce hand grabbed the top of his skull in a crushing grip. "I have invited powerful warriors onto my tail, and I must teach you how to fight. I must take the easy way, but when I have leisure and Methos lays defeated at my feet, then I will teach you as you should be taught." 

            Black lighting gathered on his body, crackling, making the air smell of ozone. "But for now, my student, my son in my ways, learn!"

            Rapheal screamed, as the lightning sought to rip him limb from limb, crackling over his flesh, oozing deep within him, and erasing the last traces of whatever human was left to him. The remains of the parakeet began to smolder as Arrashareth laughed again. The water in the sink crackled and cracked as it froze over.

With devastating power, Arrashareth's laugh wove a chilling counterpoint to the howling death screams of what was left of a man. 

            As a monster was born. 

            From the point of view of a certain cat, peeking in through a parted blind, the situation did not look good. No, it did not bode well. Speaking on behalf of the memories of the parakeet, and the man who'd once lived here, the cat's voice echoed a comment perfectly suited to spine chilling horror played out before it.

            "Oh shit."  
  


  
And that was chapter fifteen!  Redone, and fixed, so it wasn't a bloody run on sentence anymore… growph.

After a month and more of waiting, I have updated! Yeah! Good for me! See why I dragged my feet, though? I really, really didn't want to do this. At least I've established some future in my story boarding. 

And I chained Gollum up while I worked, so he didn't get his dirty little fingers in my pie. Gollum being my character death Muse. Sick puppy, and the first one who isn't a Greek Muse to wake me up and introduce themselves. But Smeagol is chained up with a cheap imitation of his Precious, and I'm typing while he's out of sight and mind. He will not be getting his fingers into this pie! He's forced me to write an unpostable Harry Potter story, and an absolutely horrid Eddings story, and. well, he's been making me spend my time on character death, rather than demon death, which I'd really like to work up to. 

            Aside from that, well, it's only nine more chapters to go. 

            Next chapter: Red and Ree and Rita, all over again! Joisee peets! 

            This kinda is worked into my favorite universe. I've a couple of story-boarded ideas ready, but most of them are pre-Ghosts, and they haven't a serious priority. I've got to finish the stories I've already started first. Which means, yuck, a lot of work ahead of me. But I've finally figured out how in the name of all that's holy I'm going to end this story without Arrashareth winning.

            Trust me, it took some doing, but I've got demon boy boxed in, and whimpering. I've got a shamanic totem spirit grinning like a. well, like a Wolf. I've got a restored Marie. Now I just have to write the damn thing on computer! I've got this lovely graph next to my monitor, though. erg.. 

            Pooka, and Slef, you know who you are. The thought of you waiting patiently for me to update gave me the impetus I needed to confront demon boy and write this update. Congratulations. You are my reason for writing. You and my few constant reviewers, although you lead the pack, are the nagging voices that remind me I've a story to finish. 

Rambling aside, I'll see you next time!


	16. Surprise! You're not a mortal anymore

Disclaimer applies here! Not mine, I'm playing with Davis-Panzer's toys, and I'm not making any money off of it. So there! Nyah! Nor am I making any money off the other author's ideas I'm using, but since I'm not going into it too deep, I'm not naming them. See if you can guess.

As always, thanks to my great reviewers. Especially Pooka, and Slef, and Shade. As Slef found out, if Ff.net isn't letting you, you can always email me the review. I like them in any format. Oh, yeah. I finally let a character swear in this one. Red's a wee bit of a foul mouth. Just a wee bit. She's no Caly. (A deep respectful bow to the inventor of *that* colorful and wonderful character).

****

Chapter Sixteen

"Shit. You've been seriously fucked up, Ree." Red said, lowering the camera.

"Can we please let me take a bath now, and put on clothes? And can you change out of your uniform?"

"It's not a fucking uniform, it's a suit." Red grumbled.

"You only wear a suit to work, Red. It's a uniform." Rita chuckled.

"Well, yeah, they're punching me back on shift for this. I'm the one who found you. Officially like. Besides, emotional motivation to fix the problem gives you so much more oomph." Red smiled. "Go take a bath. I think I've got some sweats you left here last time you slept over. Rita, go fix her up something to eat."

"Right. One young feast coming up. You have forty minutes to shower and dress, Ree. It'd be thirty, but…." Rita smiled with sympathy in her eyes, and vanished into the kitchen.

"Food." Marie's eyes lit up. "Oh lord, you know how to win a girl's heart."

"When's the last time you ate, Ree?"

"Uh, dinner, the night I was grabbed."

"Three days? Holy shit. What have you gotten yourself mixed in with, my little Catholic?" Red laid one hand gently on a bruised shoulder, half skinned from being yanked through the barely large enough window. "Normally you don't touch magic with a ten foot pole. Now, well…." She didn't need to finish her sentence. She opened a door. "Downstairs bath, girl, I don't want you on stairs, as beat up as you are. I'll go rustle up some towels."

Marie didn't argue, shutting the shower door behind her, and tossing the ruined rags of her clothing over it behind her.

As she slowly eased the temperature up to one her abused skin could tolerate, and her aching muscles swore wasn't enough, Red opened the door.

A blurry form in black, she had white in her arms, and a splash of blue. "Oh, and Ree?" The voice was tense, and very angry sounding. Marie decided to ignore it, and hope Red would let it pass.

There was a long pause, with occasional yelps of pain. Red didn't move, standing in the bathroom, presumably looking at the marbled glass door which shielded Marie from her gaze. Marie sighed, and gave in. "What, Red?" Marie asked, hissing slightly as she used a soft sponge to dab at the torn and tattered skin. 

"I'm fucking taking that god damn hand print out on whomever did it." Red's voice was more than angry. "No one fucking does that to one of mine."

"I'm not a mage, Red."

"No, but you're one of mine all the same. Shit, what good am I as a mage if I can't even protect my god damn friends? I was about ready to kill myself when Coney told me he'd checked your apartment, and found demon stench all over it!"

"Don't ever, Red. Don't even joke about it near me." Marie's voice went absolutely flat. "Death isn't some place you want to be going. Never, ever, ever, do that."

Red spoke softly. "Sorry, Ree. Still having those nightmares?"

"They're not nightmares. They're memories." The water stopped, and before Red could say anything. "Towels, please?"

"Memories, Ree?"

"A curse. Long ago, one poor little temple warrior made a bad decision, and ever since she's been cursed to live again and again, and again. Until such time as the curse is broken by its caster, or by one of his students." Marie sighed, and the towels flopped over the edge of the shower stall, spotted in some places with blood. "Hand me the disinfectant, will you? And a bunch of cotton swabs?"

Red obliged as a slim hand opened the door a crack. "Who cursed you?"

"The same demon who's trying to torture me to death now. Or who was. Ever hear of Immortals, in your line of work?"

"I've heard a thing or two, yeah."

"I'm a side line. He's trying to pollute Immortality, so he can manipulate it so one of his tainted win the Gathering, and he can take over."

"Ultimately making him ruler of the world."

"Yeah. He's a Demon of the World Beyond, the Plains of the Dead. Nasty sort."

"Huh. Any Immortals aware of this?"

"Yep. Two. One killed one of his avatars, an Immortal he'd overwhelmed so that he was running the show, and teaching students. The other is the student of another killer of his avatar. Who has his teacher's Quickening, and the taint through him."

The disinfectant and a pile of used cotton balls were handed back out, and without asking Red passed in the antibiotic. She grimaced, and without touching them, the cotton balls spotted with blood flew into the trash can.

"Bandages next, right?"

"Gauze, please, and white pads." Marie sighed. "Not too many actual raw wounds. There's the burn on my leg, though, I'll need burn ointment for that."

"Stop sounding so practical!"

"Red, you've been nearly dead from obscure wounds, and you remain practical and calm at all times."

"Yeah, but I work for the Government! I'm supposed to be cool under fire!"

"Bond. Red Bond. For the Department of Mages."

"Nope. No such agency exists."

"You just say that because it's a real agency."

"Actually, no. We all hang out together, but we're in the individual alphabet agencies. FBI, CIA, SS, NSA. Although, now that I've told you, I'm going to have to kill you." Red's voice was laughing.

"Right. Decapitation doesn't hurt badly, and the right poison is absolutely painless." Marie was chuckling, as the left over gauze was deposited in Red's hands. Along with a half empty tube of antibiotic, and an equally abused, formerly new, tube of burn ointment.

"Those memories?"

"Uh huh. Now when I say 'been there, done that', I'm not kidding." She spoke with a weary tone of voice. "The soul behind this body has experienced possibly every death there is. Hell, it was even at Vesuvius!"

The clothes went in. Soon after, Marie stepped over, still staggering, but looking in better spirits.

Cleaned up, she still looked like shit, but she looked happier about it.

"Clean hair." Marie smiled brightly, running her hand loosely through her wavy hair. "Do you know how very nice being clean feels?"

"Yes. Let's get going before Rita loses her temper and punches a hole in my wall again." Red chuckled.

When they got to the kitchen, and the small table, they were astounded by the sight of a cat sitting primly on the counter, ignored completely by Red's dog, Crunchies. As a Samoyed, Crunchies couldn't bark. But he generally enjoyed harassing cats as much as possible. Sometimes more than possible. To have him ignoring a cat was just, well, unheard of.

"Hi boss." The voice came from the _cat._ "Hey, little one." It strolled along the corner, and the fluffy white head butted easily under a palm. "I've told the Immortals where to find you. Now, boss, where's the Wolf Totem? We need to get started putting that demon into a hell of our making. Oh, by the way, his favorite flunky's now an Immortal, and there's not an ounce of humanity left to him."

Red's eyes widened, and she stared at the cat. Somehow, when she spoke, her voice seemed to echo from a deep well. "Aww shit. Did you have to come and really wake the situation up, Cat?"

"Boss, things are coming to a head. You're either in, or you lose your little one here. Forever. Since you and the Wolf are such good buddies lately, I thought you'd want him in on it."

"Lemme call her. Ree, eat."

*****************************************************************

Tada! I've updated! Cheer me! Yeah! Yeah! Now, all of you reading have no excuse. You've got to review and tell me what you think. Thank you for your patience in waiting, however. Oh, my Fleish Kincaid Reading Level is 3.3. Which means your cousin who's only just in forth grade can read this, except for the violence and language. And the Reading ease is 85.3, and I've got 2% passive sentences. Makes one wonder doesn't it?


	17. Let the Council of War Meet and Greet

Disclaimer: Not mine! Dang, I wish they were… uh, wait! Maria, Rita, and Red are mine! Yeah! And the cat, and the demon, and his flunky, and oh bugger. Why me?

Why can't I have the money-making ideas?

****

Chapter Seventeen

"Wait, you're telling me that this cat talks, that this poor abused woman has just escaped captivity from a demon, and you're the incarnated soul of a animal spirit totem?" The woman sitting before them pinched her eyes.

An elbow socked the cat in the ribs, and the gaping mouth snapped shut. "But… but… he's a girl!"

"Yes, cat, she's a girl." Rita chuckled, laying a plate in front of the newly arrived guest.

The woman moved her hand. "One of you is an excellent mimic, and ventriloquist."

"Ventrilo-what?" The cat blinked at her, tail twitching idly as this latest information was considered.

"It talked."

"Yes, I talk! I'm one of Bast's messenger cats!" The cat snorted, and gave Red a pleading glance. "Please, boss."

"If you're a messenger cat for a god, why are you calling a government flunky boss? Unless there's things I didn't know about the government."

All four women stared at each other for a second, and then burst out giggling.

"Oh, that hurts." Marie stopped first. "You know, Red, you now have two agendas to follow."

"You're being awfully accepting for a non-magical type." The so far nameless woman said, tugging on one long brown strand of hair come loose from her bun. "As well as you, Rita."

"Hey, my mom's a witch. I know this stuff. Marie, she's just a bad Catholic."

"Bad Catholic, no Catholic biscuits." Red said, idly.

"Yeah, right. Red, introduce us to your newest guest, and stop interrupting Marie's eating." Rita snorted.

Marie smirked, but didn't turn her attention from the bowl of soup before her.

"Right. My dear friends, I'd like to introduce you to a private sector mage friend of mine. Dee, meet my oldest friends. Marie Juliet Amberain, owner of the bookstore Scent of Leather. Margarita de Salvo, employee at Kendall's Dojo, specializing in the training of small children, and black belt. As well as former high school girl's wrestling champ for the city. Gals, meet Deidre Culain, mage, world-saver, and counselor for battered women at the local shelters."

Marie swallowed, and then spoke. "Hello, I'd like to report a demon for kidnapping and assaulting me."

Dee began to giggle, but stopped at the serious looks on the faces of the women before her. "You aren't kidding me, are you?"

"Nope. Remember you tried to warn me about getting in too deep before you realized I was a mage for the USA?" Red's smile was weakened by the angry cast to her face. "Warnings wouldn't have worked on Marie, here. She was a target before she ever knew the bad guy existed."

The cat jumped off the table, to vanish as it rounded the corner into the living room, muttering about men.

Elsewhere:

"I hate city driving." Methos growled, as he looked at the streets. "Would have helped if the cat gave us directions and all, but no, no such luck."

"Turn left at the next light."

Joe glared down at the cat on his lap. "Hello, kitty. Where have you been?"

"Getting my preconceptions adjusted. The Wolf Totem's always run around as a guy! Always!"

The three men glanced at each other, and then snickered.

"Poor kitty. I'm sure the big bad totem didn't meant to hurt your brain." Methos snickered.

"Shut up, Methos. Or I'll tell them about that time in Venice with the Conte."

Methos glared at the cat, who ignored him, glancing out the window. "Left at Thirty-First avenue, and park in the big lot on the corner. You'll have to walk the rest of the way."

They did park, and saw flashing lights.

Methos tensed. "How many different police and other law enforcement types are there down there?"

"Don't know. See the house the suits are standing near? You want that one. If they ask you, tell them you're friend's of Ree, and want to talk to Red." The cat muttered, and he sighed. "The one with the dead flower box."

The shades were fixed on them. "What are you doing here?"

"We're friends of Ree, want to talk to Red." Methos said, smiling kindly.

"Friends of Ree? That book shop owner?" One of them baited.

"Yes. Your Julia is called Ree." The cat hissed silently.

"Yeah. Have you seen the shop? Great selection of sixteenth century manuscripts in her upper floor." He hoped none of them decided they'd like to start collecting. Those manuscripts were quite rare, and he intended to buy them. If she'd sell. He shrugged, and flinched as cat claws buried in his shoulder. "Cat!"

"Mrow?"

He trotted up the steps, and knocked.

A woman with flame red hair answered.

"Let us in, boss." The cat murmured, and she sighed.

"Oh, it's you lot. Come on in. Ree's eating."

She babbled at the group outside. Dressed in the same black wool suit she was. Well, same style, and same accessories. Then she shut the door. "I'm not sure it's entirely wise to be admitting Immortals into my house."

"They aren't vampires, boss." The cat snickered. "They don't need an invitation to enter."

Those sitting around the table regarded them steadily, except one battered looking brunette.

"Methos!"

He stared down at the head that was resting on his shoulder, and hesitantly hugged her back.

"I hoped you'd come. Oh gods, Methos, what I wouldn't give for Borvo's gift to you right now."

He stiffened, and stared down at her. She'd spoken in Celtic.

He wasn't the only one staring. Duncan looked flabbergasted, Joe looked considerate, and the other women looked absolutely shocked.

"I think I just missed that one." The blond said. "Well, you lot, we gonna get introductions, or will I not be knowing who it is eating my tomato soup and hugging my friend." Then she did a double take. "You! The guy with the nose! And fish guy! Oh god, take off your shirt again?"

Duncan regarded her quizzically for a long moment, until he began to darken beneath his olive complexion.

The other brunette studied the newcomers. Once she gave poor MacLeod the once over, she smiled, a predatory grin slowly spreading on her previously expressionless face. "I'm Dee."

"Joe Dawson." Joe sighed. "You as lost as I am?"

"Maybe, but maybe not." Dee shrugged. "Being the Wolf, I get a bit more information than you do."

"Well, I'm Rita, and sit down and eat soup." The blond looked away from MacLeod to smile brightly at them. "We also have sandwiches, and chicken cordon bleu. Beer, anyone? Not you, Ree, you're hurting, and we want your white blood cells concentrating on healing, not cleaning toxins out of your blood."

Ree eased herself back in her chair, with a tired sigh. "My dear friends, and my new friend Dee, meet Duncan MacLeod, antique dealer. Adam Pierson, his personal mooch, and an expert linguist. Joe Dawson, blue player, bar owner, and all around cool Vet." She rolled her other eyes. "Going the other way, Alice McDonough, government employee."

The red haired woman nodded, smiling softly.

"Deidre Culian, head shrinker and witch."

The other brunette gave Marie a hard look, before beginning to snicker.

"Margarita de Salvo, excellent cook, and trainer of small children in the art of self defense."

The blond set a plate with chicken before Joe, smiling warmly.

"Also, Cat, who seems to be a flunky of Red's from back before Red decided to run around as a mortal." Marie sighed. "Let me lay the cards out on the table. Our enemy is Arrashareth, a Demon of the World Beyond, currently wearing the body of some poor luckless Immortal. His major flunky is Rapheal, a mean ass mortal…"

"Immortal." The cat said, tail twitching.

Marie's eyes narrowed. "Immortal, who seems to have sold his soul to the Prince of Hell. He doesn't deserve to live. On the other side, we have Methos, the oldest known Immortal, who's here for reasons known only to himself. Hopefully because a woman dead a thousand years managed to put a couple strings around his heart."

Methos glared over his bottle, but said nothing.

"Duncan MacLeod, general Boy Scout and do-gooder, who cannot resist a problem that needs solving, or a damsel in distress. Said bio straight from Methos." She smirked at Methos, and nodded to Joe. "Joe Dawson, the meanest blues player in Seacouver, which is quite a whiles from here, and head of the Watchers for the continental US and Canada."

Red looked intrigued, and Rita's hand on her arm stopped her even as she opened her mouth.

"We have the target. Myself. Marie Juliet, currently, I've been around the Wheel of Life so many times, I'd better have frequent flyer miles. I'm also having a considerable problem keeping it all straight when I don't concentrate on being Marie Juliet. Way back before civilization got started I was a temple guard. I managed to somehow screw up Arrashareth's plans, and got cursed for my pains, so that I never got to stay dead. I also seem to not be affected by the River of Lethe. A thousand years ago, I was Mahna, called Julia by a not Roman I saved from beheading. I died at the swords of Roman legionnaires, but not before I swore an oath of blood brothership with the not Roman, Methos." She took a deep breath. "I meant it too, Methos. I guess I still do."

"Red here is a government flunky, also known as one of their mages. This leaves this room, she will explain exactly how it feels to live Gattica. Before she lived as a mage, though, she was the Lion Totem spirit, very powerful, and very pissed with Arrashareth for meddling with someone they'd taken under their protection." She reached up, and traced three fingers down her face.

Red nodded, and she smiled softly. "I told you, you're one of mine. No one fucks with one of mine and gets away with it."

"Dee here is a free lance mage, who has fun, and tries to heal the wounded spirits of women. Before she did this, however, she was the Wolf Totem Spirit, best friend and pal of the Lion Spirit, and very interested in possibly smashing down Arrashareth for some slight unknown during the dawn of time." The cat took over, glancing at the pale Marie. "Me, I'm the Lion Spirit's flunky. Especially since she did a turn as Bast, and I'm specifically a messenger of Bast. I'm a good spy, and good at getting into places I'm not supposed to be, but I'm not good at combat, unless you need a distraction rather than an actual fighter."

"As for me, I'm neither a mage, nor an Immortal, nor a Watcher. I'm just what I claim to be. A mortal teacher of judo, tae kwon do, and akido. Frankly, I'm thinking I'd better stay the hell out of any form of combat where more than one person has the ability to throw fire, or come back from the dead." Rita said, shrugging honestly. "I will, however, keep you lot fed and watered while you discuss what the hell you're going to do to bring down the son of the bitch. I also want to get in a few pummels of my own, once he's pacified."

Ahem, first I would like to apologize for all my loyal readers and reviewers. When I haven't been working, I've been feeling horrible, so I haven't been doing much creative writing stuff. That's worth reading, anyway. I'm not sure even Gollum likes my latest stories. All wonderful characters dying of loneliness, the flu, or overwork. See, you can hear him holler. 'No! No! Gollum. Sneezes and sniffles is no way to die. Gollum. Orcsies and demonsies is way. Gollum.'

Anyways, I've been forcing myself to tackle this chapter, and the unusual slant on it has messed my story line out no less than seven times, resulting in seven tossed documents. Grumble.

The good news is, the sun is out, the wind is the perfect breeze, I'm not being quite as badly over-worked and under-appreciated, and I went and flew a brand new kite I bought! It's a unicorn, with wings! And boy, is it difficult to fly. So I'm feeling worlds better. I actually wake up with energy, and don't sleep fourteen to sixteen hours at a stretch! May I please note, I hate snow. Especially when we get it in such quantities. Baltimore is not equipped to deal with nearly three feet of fluffy white stuff. Nor is my street. *grumble, grumble* My Muses ran screaming when I did that. Digging out a ¼ mile of unplowed road? Not the way to a happy LC.

Pooka, Slef, it was you two, just being out there, that prodded me to finish this. I know it's late, and I beg your forgiveness. My deepest and humblest apologies. I promise I'll try to get eighteen out by the end of April.

I also ask you to bear patience with me. Firehair and I are not on speaking terms, and she's my favorite person to do plot suggestions, so I'm on loose shale and praying to get across right now. Shade, yes, I know, you'll make plot suggestions, but I'm not sure sanctified snow shoes work in this story. I have, um, at the minimum, seven more chapters to go. I want to make sure only one is wrap up, so that means I've got six story chapters to go. Six chapters. Most of which I want to build the dramatic tension in. I know the horror's mostly gone. You can only type so much without deciding to veer off course for that.

Now, may I please have the attention of all readers? Do not expect a post from me on or around June 21rst. You who know, know why. As well as that comment, I do want reviews. Slef and Pooka keep me going, but it gets a little disheartening thinking they're the only people that like me. Where's your follow through folks? This author needs food before she considers creating.


	18. Some Startling Discoveries

Disclaimer: Davis and Panzer own Duncan MacLeod, Joe Dawson, Methos, and the very concept of Immortality. I own everybody else in the story. Um, well, the concept of mages working for the Febs belongs to Mercedes Lackey.

Author's Note: I'm so sorry this has taken so long for me to update. The good news is, the other chapters are passable, so I may actually update faster. Now, I just have to remember to update them, after a few more checks. I may check out that beta-reader, slef, I just want credentials first. Aside from that, well, I have to remember. After all, I'm never quite all here, or there, or anywhere. Yes, I know it isn't April. It's May. Well, at least I'm putting it out before June, huh?

****

Chapter Eighteen

The group stared at each other, no one exactly sure of what they could do.

"Any other limitations we have that we're working with?" Dee asked, softly.

"Yeah. Methos and MacLeod are tainted with Arrashareth's power already. They can't take the head of the Immortal whilst Arrashareth is calling that Immortal home." The Cat sighed, stretching.

"Rapheal is free ground, though." Ree pointed out, mumbling around a mouthful of food.

"Ree, didn't your mother ever teach you manners?" Rita snorted.

Methos smirked. "Well, MacLeod, do you want the little pest?"

Duncan nodded. "With pleasure."

Joe spoke up. "You said, I believe, that the Immortal can't be touched while the demon's calling him home. Is there any way that he can be kicked out?"

"Hell yeah." Dee sat up, eyes brightening. "There are thousands of spells to banish a spirit."

"Problem. I don't want him banished. I want him fucking dealt with, once and for all." Red growled, crackling her knuckles.

"So you'd perform a ceremony to take the spirit from him, as well as setting up a containment shield, to bind him to the Earth temporarily…" Dee's eyes went distant, as she chewed her lip. "We've got the oophm to handle a spirit, between us."

"Arrashareth can't be killed." The Cat said it, simply. "Not without some major bad secondary effects."

Ree shook her head, quickly swallowing some mango juice. "No. He bound his soul to mine, I think, when he had me captive. I don't know whatever language he was speaking, but that's what he said it would do. Forgive me if this inconveniences you."

"It certainly does!" Dee exploded out of her chair, "How strongly are you bound?"

She shifted, and looked at the ground, as Red stood from her slouch against the counter, and waved her hand at the embarrassed girl. Lights flared and glowed about her.

A muddy brown color, as well as a startling white, series of lines and runes were 'written' all over her skin, hanging over it, or as much as a foot away from her. They looked harsh, and painful. Deep blue lines, as well as electric blue runes, also marked her, but they appeared older, and smoother. Less… dangerous.

Joe, Duncan, and Methos all looked perplexed as the women in the room, excepting Marie, swore violently. They were studying the lines and marking intently.

Even the cat yowled in misery. "I didn't know it was that bad! Honest, boss, if I'd known, I'd have reported it straight off!"

Rita swallowed, and spoke, in a very quiet voice. "Do all those colors mean what I think they mean? I mean, I haven't had a lesson in it since Mom moved off to Wisconsin…."

Red nodded, before she strode swiftly to Ree, and pulled her out of the chair, to bestow a crushing embrace upon her. "They're bad. Very, very bad."

"How bad?" Methos asked, looking at Red, eyes narrowed.

"If the demon is killed, if his spirit is destroyed, Ree will be destroyed with him. Her spirit will be obliterated." Dee said, voice very soft, and sorrowful. "It would be a waste. With the thousands of lives she's lived, and the very interest that Alice has taken in her for the thousands of years that Ree's spirit has been around, to have that much energy and goodness destroyed would be a setback."

"A setback, and a very nasty blow for those spirits who've taken to relying upon her inherent knowledge. Even if it's been hidden from her, its still existed, a pool of knowledge just floating beyond the comprehension of anyone but true spirits." The cat hung his head.

"Aside from spirits, Ree has friends, and plenty of them." Rita joined the other two in the embrace, her arms holding them both close. "If the spirit is destroyed, Ree won't exist anymore. She'll die, and we won't even be able to speak to her ghost."

"Only a demon would do this." Red choked out. "Only a demon could hold a spirit in such disregard."

Methos frowned. "Does that mean we can't defeat him? That he's going to be allowed to toy with Julia forever? You're going to give up?"

"We can't give up!" Dee snapped. "One, if we give up, it will permanently hurt our status as Totemic Spirits. Two, the spells laid about her will kill her anyway. Give or take a few years, but they will kill her. Kill her, and destroy her spirit and soul utterly."

MacLeod spoke up. "So why can't you break the spell?"

"We can't break all of it." Red said. "The contingency which would end her life anyway we can do in. But the rest of it, well, he's tied it into his bond on her, and the peculiar curse he put upon her. It's already worked its way into her soul. No one except a full fledged god is powerful enough to remove that sort of thing and most of them want little to nothing to do with Ree. Not after I claimed her, and not after Arrashareth marked her in those old, old days."

"It's why the girl hasn't had to worry about any spiritual threats, either. It's beyond the ability to See, but all of the gifted know she's marked, deep down in their bones. No one messes with someone who's the battleground for powerful spirits who used to be gods. No one." Dee shook her head. "If I saw her on the streets, I would say hello, but I would do nothing else."

Duncan sighed, as Methos shook his head, violently.

"There has to be something we can do! I am not standing by as this girl falls to forces beyond her control! Not again!" The eldest Immortal glowered at them.

"It's okay, Methos." She spoke, softly. "I've lived so long, maybe I want a rest."

"That's just his spell speaking." Red snapped. "No. You want to live, do you understand me? You want to live, laugh, make strange jokes, run your book-shop, and otherwise be a nuisance."

"Shame you can't lock the demon up like a criminal." Joe sighed, and sipped at his drink.

Eyes lit up. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking, Red?"

"I dunno, Dee, are you thinking of specialized containment spells?" Red smiled, allowing Ree to sit, stroking the girl's shoulder gently. Ree grimaced at the movement, but went back to the dinner laid out before her.

"What would contain a demon of the dark?" Rita frowned.

"Sunlight!" Red exclaimed. "But, how?"

"Research!" Dee said, smirking. "We'll have to find a specialized spell, and find the perfect place to cast it. But first, we'd better destroy what of his spell we can."

"There's a Catholic Church about five blocks down." Rita's eyes moved from one person to the next. "They're closed down right now, they have to repair damage, but it's consecrated, and best yet, it's been used by Catholic Mages before."

"So it's prepped for spell-casting?" Dee looked intrigued.

"And the priest will lend the key for any sufficiently desperate spell caster who needs Holy Ground." Rita nodded her head. "Only, after the vandals, you have to prove you're a spell caster. And he's going to sit in the back as a silent witness."

"Right. I've got a few tools in my car. I'll go get them."

"Rita, can you clean up? I've got to get a few things from my workroom." Red smiled lightly, and she was out the door.

"Ree, don't you even dare move." Rita spoke, as the dark haired girl started to rise from the table. "These nice old gentlemen are quite capable, and surely willing to help out by doing the dishes and taking out the trash."

Ree snickered. And kept snickering.

Authors Note Version 2.0!

And there you have it. The long awaited chapter eighteen. Aren't you proud of me? I'll do my best to have nineteen up soon. I would promise by the end of the week, but I have to work all week, so that's a maybe. Next week, perhaps.

As an aside, how many of you were at the HFStival May 24th? What'd you think of the show? My favorite had to have been Godsmack, after the joys of Chevelle and Good Charlotte, of course. Jane's Addiction wasn't too bad. Loved The Donnas. And Jack Johnson. And The Used.

The mike, of course, made a number of the guys sound like a girl. Not that I don't think Jane's Addiction wasn't going for that anyway.

If you went, I hope you loved it. If you didn't go, well, it was fun. Try next year.


	19. Hither Dither and Yon

Heh. Heh-heh.

I said a week, didn't I?

I really should learn to keep my mouth shut. I really am sorry it got delayed. A series of unfortunate events transpired to keep me from posting, as well as to keep me from even desiring to *re* type the last few chapters of the story. I managed to keep my Harry Potter story going. Since that inspiration was from the books, and from a story, rather than from a living person.

My best friend, who is also my beta reader and my Muse in chief, sort of deserted me. I have hopes that the friendship will be restored to something approaching its former glory. So in honor of that friendship which I am desperately trying to get back, I dedicate this chapter.

To Red. My very own original. To our friendship. Eight years last Halloween. May it recover from the temporary setback, and live thrice as long as it has done. Without you, my Red, my creativity deserts me. I'm not sure what I did, but I'll do my best to mend my faults.

****

Chapter Nineteen

"Holy water."

"Check."

"Sanctified candles."

"Check. Any particular color necessary?"

"I don't find that the color has any results on the working. Silver handbell?"

"Check."

"Mirrors in brass, silver, and steel?"

"Check, but the brass needs to be polished."

"We can cope with that no problem. Grimore?"

"Check."

"Guys, it's just my shop!" Ree's cry cut across the discussion. "You don't need to armor up like you're going to war."

"Who knows what foul spells that demon's left behind?" Dee looked disturbed. "You said you had a small room of magical texts, perhaps he's used it for a resource."

Rita, driving the SUV full of chattering girls, sighed and shook her head as they parked in the small lot nearby the former townhouse, which had become the bookshop. "It would have popped up by now, considering I've been running the place for Ree since she went missing."

Ree's soft question was nearly drowned by the outraged shouts of the two spell casters in the car, but it was answered none-the-less.

"You're wondering about my classes at the Dojo, aren't you, Ree?" Rita chuckled. "Simple, I just told Antoine you were missing, and someone had to run your shop while you were gone, or you'd go bankrupt. He had Bubbles handle my classes."

"You didn't have to, but thanks." Ree limped towards the door. "Did you get any customers for the special room?"

"About four, all of them were in the binder. One of them, you'd called him Fish-eye in your blurb, he wants to bring by a pal. Something about 'rare magical library lover' club."

"I'll think about it after I'm healed up." Marie said, as she unlocked the front door. Her first action was to go to the lock pad and enter a code. "Rita, will you get the windows? Red, check the kitchen for munchies. You'll need it if you two are doing some serious research."

"What about possible spell traps?" Dee asked, outraged.

"Each mage that visits me has a bio in a binder. Those bios are hooked to a spell. Rita would have said something if any of the pages were red."

"Pages were red?" The government mage frowned.

"The customers helped me ward the 'Relic Hall' as they call it. If their wards fail, their page turns red."

"They were all white yesterday." Rita called as she vanished up the stairs to the old books collection.

Ree settled in the chair behind the 'desk' that was both a check-out counter, and a work space. "They're all white today." She held up the binder. "Go do your research."

"You won't get many customers, will you?"

"Open on a Sunday? I'll get more customers than I know what to do with. All of whom will be neighbors or regulars coming to see if I'm alright." It was a toothy grin. "Maybe I can guilt trip them into buying something…."

"Sorry we're making you come here on a Sunday…."

"But you need to research containment spells, and the Mage Section of the Library of Congress doesn't open on a Sunday unless you've got twenty levels of clearance and a bona fide emergency." Ree waved her hand dismissively. "I know full well I've got a collection better than you do. And besides, being open on a Sunday is relatively nothing. The bills must be paid anyway, and I'd rather work than sit here waiting for you to finish your research."

They nodded, and Dee followed Red towards the kitchen, and the door into the basement, where the promised library awaited.

"Dee, wait! You'll need to have a bio page, and add wards. Otherwise you'll show up as a breach in security."

"Who designed the security on this thing?" Dee asked, as she held still for the Polaroid.

"My father." Ree sighed. "He was a mage, a powerful one."

"Retired federal. He's the one who found me and trained me, and sent me to the Feds." Red murmured. "He was always disappointed that Marie was pretty much a null as far as major magics went. As the daughter of two mages, she has some magic, but not much at all."

"Huzzah, I can light a candle without touching it. As you noted, Dee, I'm not supposed to be magical, so all I get is the leavings and scrapings of true magic." Ree snorted, and added the page to the binder, writing quickly and neatly. "You need to cast some small spell on the bio page, so it can recognize your wards. All the standard warding materials are about."

"Huzzah, wards powered by the Wolf Totem. They'll frighten your other mages."

"Speaking of that, has Red's magical signature changed any now that she's recognized her true nature?"

"You'd have to ask the cat." Dee sighed.

Rita trotted down the stairs from the second story, book in hand. "Ask the cat what?"

"If Red's magical signature has changed."

"The cat's with the Watcher. But I remember her saying something about that…." The slender blonde frowned slightly. "Lemme see where I put that note."

*************

"So, what have you found on tracing down Samedes?" Joe leaned over her shoulder.

"Well, Mr. Dawson, I haven't found much, but Danny and Mike, uh, Oscar and Hardy, they've found traces of where he may have gone." The young secretary flushed.

"Lilah, don't call me Mr. Dawson. Just Joe works. Where are our two cops this lovely Sunday?"

"Probably over at Danny's house, watching the kids play football."

"Well, if you could either get them here, or me there…." The head of American Watchers smiled kindly.

An hour later, he was sitting on a back porch, accepting a coffee from Daniel Oscar's wife.

"So how do you know my husband, Mr. Dawson?"

"My uncle was in the same hospital as Joe during Vietnam." Danny covered for him. "He's also one of the informal informants on trouble makers in the city. As a bar owner, he has a lot of contact with the local bar owners, and they'll tell him more than they will us."

"Oh. Where's your bar, Joe?"

"Seacouver." Joe smiled. "It's a blues bar. I'm still kinda shocked that I've gained a reputation so I'm known all the way over here."

"Did you bring him in on the killing of Alex Fergus, and the bombing of Sam's Stop?" Mrs. Oscar sounded quite curious.

"Alandra, Honey, you know we can't talk about police business…. Joe has an old security clearance, so he's alright, but I don't want anyone thinking you have information…."

There was a snicker as they kissed.

"Micheal James Hardy, you act like a grown man. I still haven't forgiven you for nearly killing Danny." Alandra growled, but left.

"Uh oh, she knows your middle name. In my experience, that means you're doomed." Joe laughed.

"Where's your Immortal, Joe? Because I think Samedes is possessed, and someone has to take him down. MacLeod is one damn good fighter…."

"MacLeod isn't taking Samedes. The demon's too dangerous to Immortals. But he's off hunting down the new student Samedes just took. Rapheal. He probably has a file in your day job."

"If he isn't taking down Samedes, who is?"

"Well, some friends I can't name are going to bind the demon, and then another friend I can't name has promised to put Samedes out of his misery."

"Any of these friends you can't name the Pierson fellow? Aka Methos?"

Joe did not respond, merely sipped his coffee.

"How'd he get involved?"

"Personal reasons. An old friend, an older curse, and some things no one except a mage could be expected to deal with." Joe said it calmly.

The two younger Watchers looked at each other, and then back at their boss. "We might know something of messing with demons."

"If this demon possessing Samedes is the same one who pissed off the Bureau of Enchanters. The same one which shut down Ward Street yesterday, when his den and Dark Temple were discovered." The second spoke slowly, nervously.

"Talk. Now."

***********

Methos hung up the phone, smirking. "Well that's done. It should be arriving within a few days."

"What should be arriving?"

"A sword I had made about two or three centuries ago. Mostly as a copy of a very dear friend's sword. Because her sword, I had discovered, had vanished. So had her grave, really, when the cliff collapsed. Besides, her sword really wasn't in that good a condition after I tossed it out to sea. Swam out to fetch it and put it at her grave, but even so, there had to be some sort of memorial dedicated to her!" Methos shook his head. "Besides, it was a really nice sword. Good balance, held a nice edge, and had a particular skill against Romans going head-hunting."

"Two centuries ago, Romans weren't head hunting anymore."

"No, but the French were, and I needed something of a lucky charm. I figure a Gallic Celt gave her life for me, her blade ought to defend me against her clan's descendants, hey?"

MacLeod sighed. "Methos."

"When your clan blade rusts away, will you replace it, MacLeod?" Methos sighed. "I'd go and replace hers every few centuries or so. Until the cliff collapsed. I had it hidden in storage, but it was stolen during the World Wars by a German. I just asked Amanda to go steal it from the museum that has it, and to send it to me."

"Why?"

"Because I want to use it when fighting Arrashareth."

"Very well, but can I get to using my katana to fight Rapheal?"

"That's easy. All you have to do is go to his gang's old hide out."

"And how would I know where that is?"

"Aren't you glad you have a sneaky bastard for a friend?" Methos shot him a bright grin.

****

Author's Note!

All right, this is just a moving on chapter. My work has certainly changed as I've gone along. I'm a bit more into dialogue. But not too much, after all, four or five page updates is not my normal modus operandi.

The next chapter posted isn't an update, but a chapter summary of sorts. Also short bios for introduced characters. My working notes, really. I'm finally taking them from paper to pixel.

I was also doing a bit of research through my old school notebooks last night, looking for stuff to help me with my horror.

This isn't horror, it's suspense! I suppose. If anyone has a better idea to the proper category, do tell me, and maybe if my rating is too high, do tell.

Here's my quote that tells me I'm doing wrong for horror:

"Horror stories share one theme in common. Someone ends up paying for a false human sin. The truly scary ones have no hero to come and rescue you. No gentleman to ensure the nightmares shall never again stalk the world."

While it's just from a rough essay draft, still, I've got to find those proper class notes and write this up really properly. Maybe craft a real horror short story. Sort of Poe-etic. evil smirk at the pun. Do honor to the man who's a legend in this town, you know?

So I suppose I'll have to scare the living daylights out of myself again in order to write a properly frightening story.

Dee…. *grin* good enough? [pst - many thanks for not screaming in horror and running away at my writing. ;)]

Firehair - if you are who I think you are you might have been a tad bit mad at me for this intro, or might not. Everything I do seems to piss off my Muse these days according to the reports, so *sigh*. If you're not who I think you are, than I am most heartily glad to welcome you to my story, and hope you enjoy it.

This story was typed up and ready to go on the 7th of September, but sadly enough, real life intervened in the form of a lightning storm. I only just got internet back at the start of last week, and I've only just finally cleaned out my mailbox. Oi, I've gotta unsubscribe from about ten different mailing lists.

And now I learn the Lovely Lady out in the ocean is on her way to possibly wreak more havoc on my internet. Maybe I should run a backup copy of my hard drive tonight….

Oh, and this is the day *after* the last chapter. What they successfully managed to do will be explained in the later chapters. Mweh heh heh. Arrashareth is doomed. Now, I'm not telling for Marie, but Arrashareth (and his flunky) are doomed. Very doomed. Very, very doomed.


	20. Da Da Da Dum

A/N: This chapter was graciously written for me by cydira 13. A series of events conspired to leave me utterly frustrated and furious, and my wonderful friend was helping me get back in the mood.. Pst- make sure you visit her on ff.net (she's in my favorite stories) and express your appreciation.  
  
Disclaimer: Davis Panzer, all the way, not me, not me, not me. Dammit. All characters and plot devices borrowed are so borrowed with the intent of creating an entertaining experience, and in no wise should anyone assume that the ever so powerful producers and writers would ever include my meager story line in their most excellent show.  
  
Time: Just after dusk  
  
Dee looks up from a book that she was reading, adjusting her reading glasses slightly. Her earlier muttered profanities in "dead" languages about her slowly failing eyesight was enough to make her associates laugh. Books were piled on either side of her to well over shoulder height, when she was standing. Sitting between them, with a candle inscribed with glyphs to aid in her focus on the task, she seemed to almost be the stereotypical image of a sorceress, except for the fact that she was dressed in the wrong clothes and she was cross referencing her findings in the books with files on her laptop. Dee leaned back, looking across the table at a snickering Red. "What?" she asked with a mildly sarcastic tone and a bland look on her face.  
  
"Oh nothing, just wondering when the cat is going to get sacrificed." Red said with a grin, getting a yowl of outrage from the cat that was incoherent but clearly feline and an exasperated look.  
  
"Red," Dee said in a tone of long suffering drama, "Blood magic is probably what started this entire mess. Do you really need to make those jokes?" The cat jumped up onto the table and nearly knocked down the candle and the lap top as it skidded across the highly polished surface. Fixing the cat with a positively evil glare, Dee seemed to have a more feral air about her. If the cat would have blanched, it would have moment before it darted away, apologies trailing after it. "Some days I think it should have been given a swirly when it pissed me off the last time," Dee muttered going back to the book in front of her.  
  
Ree and Rita called up from downstairs, asking for a progress report and informing that coffee was ready. As Dee started to get up, her laptop chimed. The translation was finished. The tired annoyance melted away from her face as her attention turned to the computer screen. Dee's next words made Red's blood run cold. "Dante didn't make up that line over the gates of hell," Dee said in a surprisingly level tone, "And I think they're appropriate for the situation because of just what we're dealing with." Hesitantly, Red came around behind Dee and looked over her shoulder at the computer screen.  
  
On the screen there were two images. The first was some series of glyphs or letters in a long dead language with the translation popping up under it in blue sans serif font. To the right of it was a series of images with words under them, more precisely proper names. Names of the greater deamons of a realm known by many names but most commonly as Hell. Red's eyes opened widely. "You're kidding me," she said in a soft whisper, "You've got to be kidding me."  
  
Dee took off her reading glasses and tapped the frames lightly against the liquid crystal computer screen. The small ripples made the serpentine form of the deamon known as Arrashareth seem to look like it was alive and undulating on the screen. "I believe that right there is our problem. This particular deamon is fairly widely reported as being a particularly unpleasant figure," Dee said, an absent tone of voice and deceptively mild look on her face, "The invocation process seems to be unclear, but I suspect that blood magic would be involved. If you look at the figure, you'll see that it bears a strong resemblance to the iconography surrounding the cult of the Snake god known most recently by the ancient Egyptians as Set or Typhon. This particular Snake cult, however, focuses on an exceedingly poisonous variety of cobra."  
  
Dee's eyes looked over the computer screen, absorbed into thought as Rita and Ree came upstairs. "Guys, you want your ." they started when Dee jumped slightly.  
  
"We need to find that one called Methos," Dee said sharply, "And we need to ask him about a deamon." Her gaze focused and her expression went from deceptively peaceful and contemplative to grim and focused. "I suspect that your curse is tied up to that strange man more then anyone's going to like," Dee said, her words softening and her expression returning to it's inwardly contemplative mask.  
  
"If we're lucky, this thing isn't bringing it's friends to visit," she muttered, "We don't need another great cataclysm." As Dee mused, the bell on the door to the shop chimed merrily. Ree turned and darted down the stairs. Her scream launched all three women into action.  
  
Standing in the doorway to the shop was the deamon in question. As Rita and Red darted down the stairs, Dee's voice rang out in a surprisingly powerful tone, "Everyone, stop." The two women froze on the last few steps and the deamon turned it's gaze to the woman who walked down the stairs, her reading glasses being calmly placed into her pocket as she finished the last few steps. "Ladies, bring Miss Amberlain (it's Amberain) up to the library so that she can review our findings," Dee said in a cold tone. As the deamon moved to cross the threshold, Dee's hand rose and she said, "You haven't been invited in. Stay there."  
  
He blinked, it had been a very long time since some one expected him to observe the rules of hospitality. The sheer audacity and unexpectedness of the command left him in a mixed state of anger and confusion. Where had this woman found anything pertaining to this? "You, if I presume correctly, are Arrashareth. I am certain that you are aware that these premises are warded. While the minor wards about the perimeter may be little more then an irritation, the ones about the library upstairs are more potent. Also, upstairs is one of the most formidable mages I've had the pleasure of knowing," Dee said, the icy tone in her voice warming ever so slightly.  
  
As Arrashareth opened his mouth to say something, Dee crossed the room. Standing nearly nose to nose with the man that this deamon had possessed and consumed the soul there of, Dee seemed to be some kind of fae creature lit with a hero's light. Her slight figure was in stark contrast to the man before her; where he seemed to exude an aura of fouled darkness and brooding horror, Dee was a honed image of courage and righteous wrath. "Now, if you truly wish to enter," Dee said in a deathly quiet tone, "Not only do you have that to contend with, there is also me." Arrashareth's eyes narrowed in suspicion, this mortal woman suddenly seemed to be more of a threat then she had when she described the obvious.  
  
"You are bound in flesh, and therefore subject to it's hindrances and weaknesses," Dee said, "If I were you, I'd leave before something unpleasant happened to that host of yours." Arrashareth roared in outrage and then suddenly fell silent. Cold steel pressed against the axial vertebrae of his spine.  
  
"If I paralyze him," Methos asked, "would he still be a threat?" The sound of Methos's voice made Arrashareth turn. Cursing loudly, the deamon knocked the sword aside and stormed past Methos. As it stormed off, it seemed to waver and then disappear like a mirage. Suspicion filled Methos's eyes as Dee frowned. "What were you thinking when you challenged that?" Methos asked, his tone a touch too sharp, almost scolding Dee as she turned away from the doorway.  
  
"That I could bluff it," Dee said casually, before calling her associates down and asking them to bring the laptop and the book with them. 


	21. Oh What Tangled Webs We Weave

Disclaimer - I do not own Methos, Duncan MacLeod, or Dawson. I do own the bookstore, Red, Ree, and Rita. I'm playing in someone else's sandbox, with their toys, but I also brought my own.

**Chapter Twenty-One**

**'Oh what webs we weave'**

* * *

"Are you alright, Ree?" Red asked.

"She's just gotten a terrible shock." Dee sighed, and smiled gently. She got a watery smile in return.

"I thought the creepy bastard couldn't walk around in sunlight." Rita protested, coming down the stairs with her arms full.

"Upstairs with those!" Ree barked. "No magical items are to leave the upstairs research room! We've got normal customers too, you know!"

Dee nodded. "You, buster, upstairs. Ree...."

"I'll be alright."

"No, Ree, you're coming upstairs too. Rita, can you watch the desk?"

"Why?"

"She doesn't want you down here so he can get at you again. And no, that wasn't the creepy bastard, Rita. It was a sending." Red laughed. "After you, sir...." She nodded at the stairs.

The blond laughed. "Don't worry, Ree, I haven't broken your shop yet, have I?" She handed the bundle off to Methos, who was a bit bemused by being called 'buster'.

Ree was firmly entrenched in the big ancient wing back chair, the wide leather seat making her look smaller than she really was. "So, research summary?"

"One, our daemon is a creature of the dark, loathes sunlight." Red said. "We're going to do a sunlight containment spell, but I can't think of one strong enough."

"There was that rumor of that one major player up in New York-" Dee was cut off by Red's head shake.

"Alright, what do the government files say?"

"Short duration bursts of sunlight created by extreme panic only. Apparently she had trouble with some creatures that go bump in the night herself. I don't know much more. We tend to avoid those players." Red sighed. "We're lucky we've got as much as we do. Besides, that was the seventies. She's in her sixties by now."

"Well, that won't work. Short bursts do not translate to long term imprisonment." Dee slumped down into a chair at the desk.

Methos got a soft request from Ree, and fetched a slim book from a shelf. She paged through it.

Then held it out to Dee. "Would this work?"

"What?" The Wolf Totem accepted it, and her eyes widened. She looked at the cover of the book. "This is... a six hundred year old grimore. Damn. Don't suppose you'd be interested in selling this?"

"It's my family line's grimore." Ree said, shrugging.

Red's eyebrows rose. "You've got a family mage line? Damn. So, Dee?"

"A description of a purifying spell in which to imprison Dark Creatures using the powers of deities of sun, nature, and man." Dee read from the open page. She scanned through it, and whistled softly. "Awful lot of power required for this. Complicated too. We'd trap the damn monster in a crystal, and mount it somewhere it would get lots of sunlight. And summoning gods! I don't recall this sort of thing being popular to do in the old days."

"Old days? How about the modern days? I don't think I've ever heard of someone summoning a god in this day and age." Red muttered, and looked over Dee's shoulder. "I think this is a mage priest line. Ree?"

"Mom used it a lot. I'm not sure, myself."

The brain storming session went on for quite some time, Methos making himself comfortable, and playing door guard. His cell phone rang about two in the afternoon, making everyone look up. He smiled viciously.

"You did? That's great, MacLeod. We're at Ree's shop now. Do you happen to know where Joe is? Mmmhmm. Hand the phone to him, would you?"

"Yeah, Joe. Check at my apartment before coming by here. There might be something there for me, but I had Amanda ship it under both our names. If it's there, bring it by the shop. Bring my journals too, would you?" He paused. "If you tell MacLeod how to get into them, Joe, so help me-"

Red snickered slightly, but he ignored her.

"They're in my bedroom, in the wooden chest. It's locked, though. Just have MacLeod carry it down to the car." He laughed slightly at something Joe said. "Oh, chances are looking alright at the moment."

He nodded, and hung up the phone "Good news, MacLeod took out Rapheal."

Ree's cheer made them all blink for a moment.

"Ree?"

"Less said, the better." Her tone was flat.

Never the less, Dee began to question her, until Red held up a single hand.

"Hold it. Dee, you're forgetting one thing. I've already taken a statement. The Bureau knows this is being handled by independents, with a little help. But they do not like everyone knowing what a criminal's been up to."

"Does that mean you'll have to take him alive?" Methos sighed wearily.

"He's up for six definite murders, living sacrifice of virgins. There are four more missing. Questions won't be asked if I say he was 'shot trying to escape' or some other such rubbish." The feral smile made Dee twitch.

"I'd forgotten you were government."

"I'm government, and Maria Amberain is an office mascot. Our token non-magical. No one official is going to stop us, and I can even requisition heavy assistance." Red smirked.

"Knock knock."

They all looked towards the doorway.

Rita leaned in it, arms full of grocery bags. "We've got three things of chicken noodle soup. Four pot pies, and a cake that looks absolutely scrumptious, along with enough cookies to feed a horde of boy scouts. I am pleased to know I am not alone in the mission to put some meat on Ree's bones."

From her seat in the old wing back, their hostess groaned.

"I flipped the sign to closed, put a note for fish guy and Dawson to come on up."

They spread the food about, and Methos looked a little lost as conversations turned esoteric. Red and Dee were discussing the best use of a South American glyph in warding spells, in conjunction with weather alarms.

All he could understand was that heavy weather patterns would interrupt whatever ward they were using.

"Actually, if you've a touch of Bardic gift, or know someone with a touch of it, you can hang an air harp, and bespell wardings into it, so the wind from the heavy weather will activate the back up wards." Maria chuckled, and Dee blinked.

"Hadn't thought of it. I was using a crystal base, spelling it, and then putting the fragments in each lintel or window frame."

"Don't forget the roof tree." Red snorted. "And the largest fragment should go exactly in the center of the house."

Methos blinked, and Rita shook her head.

"You guys are getting me lost. Now, I can understand Ree keeping up, her father was one hell of a mage in the day, but I got lost about two minutes ago, and I swear Adam's eyes glazed over twenty minutes before that."

Red and Dee paused, and grinned slightly.

"Keeping up? I haven't been keeping up! I've understood only about half of what they've gone on about!" Ree snorted. "So, Rita, I was going over the books while I was down there." She smirked as the blond paled, swallowing slightly.

"I, uh, well-"

"Do you want another job?" Ree grinned. "You've done fine, Ms. De Salvo."

"Phew. At least you had the software, and run a decent computer. Hey, I told the mages that showed up that the library was doing a private study jam right now, because you're in a spot. Is that alright?"

"It's fine. I'd really rather not involve so many mages in the spell work." Ree sighed.

Dee nodded. "Too many cooks spoils the cake."

"Did Gov hop in?" Red tilted her head, frowning. "He's a damn good warding artist, and he works on the prisons, locking up natural gifts. I figure we can use some of his talent."

"Not without invalidating the ward itself. These spells rely on the struggle. The more he fights, the stronger they get. They also are about four layers thick, and feed off sunlight." Dee shook her head. "Although I'd no idea the prisons have spell wards on them."

"About the only kind of magic you can do while a prisoner is blood magic, and the guards keep an eye open for that sort of shit."

"Sex majicks?" Dee's eyebrows rose. "They're nearly impossible to ward out...."

"Well, that can be done, but there's a mage on duty twenty-four seven, so they can siphon off the power and prevent the prisoner from using it for nefarious purposes. We do have one fellow who's asked permission, he needs to defeat a rather nasty infertility spell. So he and his wife are, well, breaking it down bit by bit." Red grinned. "He got so embarrassed asking, apparently."

"Can't say as I blame him." Rita shuddered. "That's a taboo subject."

"What's a taboo subject?" MacLeod's soft burr made them all look up.

"Sex majicks." Ree offered. "Can't say as I mind it being taboo."

"I don't want to know." Joe snorted from behind him, as MacLeod set the chest down inside the door. "The package is in the car, Methos."

"I'll get it." The lanky Immortal stood. "If I have to listen to anymore spell craft, I'm going to be able to use it!"

"Actually, you can." Red frowned. "I think all Immortals have the potential to be spell casters, but it has to be awoken. Both you and MacLeod can be mages if you learn. Although I think you're more a shaman than a mage, per se."

Methos returned with the package, smiling at them, and settling down in one of the chairs, opening it cautiously.

Naturally, all eyes were on his hands, and the package.

The sword that came out glittered slightly.

Ree frowned, "That couldn't be-"

"No, it's not, but it's a copy of it. I thought it would be apropos, if I used this." Methos grinned.

"I don't believe you kept it."

"Well, the original version of the sword did belong to my oath-sister." He looked at her. "It's still yours." He offered her the blade.

Runes sparkled on the cross-piece, engraved cautiously.

"We scratched ours in with a rock." She snickered, studying it carefully.

"Much nicer to have it professionally done."

MacLeod frowned. "What does it say?"

"One side says 'friends and family', the other side says 'justice and responsibility'. It was her idea." Methos nodded to the plain pommel.

One had a glyph, the other was blank.

"My name's on the one side. I never knew hers, not really...."

"Oh, it was Mahna." She shrugged, and stood, balancing the blade.

"Sweet." Red stood up. "You could whomp Lord Frederick's ass with that, I'll wager."

"Probably." She frowned. "Battle tested?"

"I've taken three Quickenings with it. That blade's as sturdy as it gets."

"Well, if it's taken down Immortals, surely it can handle one pitiful demon, right?" Ree grinned at Methos.

"Right." He nodded.

Author's Note:

I'd like to thank everyone for their patience, waiting for an update to this. I really am sorry. Over eight months! Yikes! But, despite battling depression and a serious plot hole, I kept returning to this story, in my notes, again and again.

I finally worked it out sometime last week, and sat down to type it three days ago. I finished it today. I have a new meditation CD, and a favorite new incense. I am still lacking in inspiration, but I'm hopeful that forcing myself to sit and write in spite of a lacking desire has jump started this story once more.

Once again, my profound apologies for this long delay. I hope you've enjoyed this chapter.

The next one will be a view of our least favorite demon, and then I finally get to do the conflict. I've been looking forwards to that conflict for a long time. I've written, and re-written, the conflict chapter(s) nine or ten times. Now, where did I save them?


	22. Of Cabbages and Kings

Alright, alright, you've chivied me into working on this one, Pig Sticker. I'm honored you've chosen me as a favorite author, and that you chose to spend some of your time on my humble story. I bow before thee, and beg of thee thine forgiveness.

Sorry, Loreena McKennett album is doing silly things to my mind, and I haven't gotten the Renn Faire out of my system all the way.

It's taken much frowning, and failing to read other fics, to get myself at least somewhat back on track. That said, this multi-chapter effort is the last. I'm going to stick with being a one-shot wonder unless I've got the story done before I begin posting. Oi!

And the chapter titles can make sense, if you have my obscure sense of humor.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Of Cabbages and Kings

The old packing crate shattered as a wordless roar echoed through the old bomb shelter. People had long since forgotten them, and the government used them for storage. Not often did anyone enter these hidden redoubts, these safe holds against war.

So it was that no one watched a strong man throw things about.

Of course, a mother would immediately categorize his behavior as a first class hissy fit, until one of those crates shattered near her, and encouraged retreat. Luckily, there wasn't anyone there to be a target for the demon possessed Immortal.

His screams of rage echoed in the vast space.

"The fool! The damn fool!" He snarled at last, and leaned against a wall, glaring at the devastation wreaked around him. "How dare he die? How dare that blasted fool die at the hands of a MacLeod!" Soulless eyes gleamed. "I will find another, once I have dealt with those maddening pests. Bah, Champion of the Goddess or not, Methos will be mine. And Connor MacLeod, hah! He is not even a Champion! His precious cousin won't be able to save him!"

His smile etched itself onto the dark, and somewhere far off a woman bound to him against her will shivered.

"Oh, fool mortals, that think they can defeat me with magic. Not a trap made by mortal hands can hold me!"

"Ree, you alright?" Dee asked softly as she shivered.

"Oh, no, just a really old demon bound to me, plotting evil plots, and occasionally sending bad vibes my way." Ree shrank into the old wing back, shaking her head. "I do not like this."

"No shit, Sherlock."

"Cat? One more helpless comment outta you, and you're going to be short one life." Dee growled.

The cat wisely said nothing, but the fur bristled, and gray eyes narrowed.

"Well, it's almost dark." Duncan noted, glancing at his watch. "He'll be out and about by then."

"Not a happy camper. Not a happy camper. Not a happy camper." Ree began to mutter.

Methos snorted as he paused in the doorway to the room, cup of coffee in hand.

"We got the point, Ree." Red said, dryly. "Review your notes everyone. We have a spell to imprison Arrashareth, but it will involve summoning Apollo, the sun god, and at least waking a portion of the Goddess of Immortality, to wash his taint from the souls of Methos and Duncan."

"Which idea I like." Methos said, from the arm of the wing chair. He had taken to hovering close by Maria, and his hand stroked her hair gently now.

"Yes, well-"

Rita coughed from the doorway. "Got a call from Father Jules. He said he's a-okay with you using the rose window in the nave to imprison the demon, but he again wants to oversee it, and suggested that in order to do all this pagan spell casting, we also call on Mary, since it is a Cathedral to her, after all."

"Ah, one question. That window happens to be very high off the ground." Ree offered. "How are we going to get the crystal up there?"

"Well, we can always use magic." Red drawled. "I think I can manage to place one rock securely in a spot of light."

Smiles went around the room.

"I'm really not comfortable with casting mage priest spells, though." Dee said, frowning. "Plus, I'm fairly sure that the demon has probably set up spells that guard him from our influence. Red, you know any good priest mages?"

"Not that can get here soon."

"I thought you said Methos was a shaman. Aren't they priests?" Joe offered.

"You know, that would be a good idea." Red said calmly, "If he had magical experience, especially dealing with gods. But since he hasn't any, we're just going to have to cope. I'm not particularly fond of tossing major spell work onto newbies."

The cat opened its mouth,

"Cat, gag order, remember?" Dee said, silkily.

Duncan nodded. "No more yammering."

The mouth closed with a snap, and the look in slitted eyes promised a sweet revenge.

"Leave off the insults until later." Red said, calmly, "And bide awhile."

That's it, I'm calling it quits for this chapter! I'm going to need what I can put in here to make chapter twenty-four a proper conflict. So… with no further fuss, I'm posting, for the first time in a long time. - LC


	23. Chapter 23 Warning about Red Button

Grabbed wholesale from another, without editing.

Founded by chisato12010

!Important!

I heard about Redbotton (a program that may get my stories and maybe your stories deleted from FanFiction .net)…

Please read this article I copied off from Civil Initiative .com... If I get in trouble for posting this then so be it, but I feel all readers should know the facts… It's their RIGHT…

Friday, August 27, 2010

The RedBotton Issue and what it means for FFNet

As some may have noticed there has recently been a mass reporting of stories on FFNet that are being made by a person known as RedBootton. The administration of the site have been made aware of a disturbing revelation about this account.

RedBootton is actually a program that was designed by Lord Kelvin and is used by various members of Literate Union. Redbootton appears to be capable of accessing Ffnet and searching stories or summaries for either key words or patterns of grammar and then creating a list of the stories that are "in violation of ToS" it then mass reports these stories until the stories are either removed by the author or mods. The members of LU don't even scan over the list before executing the report portion of the program.

The list itself is generated in a matter of minutes.

The idea is to go through each fandom systematically and clean house until Lord Kelvin can finish the touches on the site wide program. After each fandom is cleaned it will then be used to scan all new stories being posted.

This is a serious violation of the ToS on FFNet

4. General Use of the Website

hereby grants you permission to access and use the Website as set forth in these Terms of Service, provided that:

A. You agree not to distribute in any medium any part of the Website, including but not limited to User Submissions (defined below), without 's prior written authorization.

B. You agree not to alter or modify any part of the Website.

C. You agree not to access User Submissions (defined below) or Content through any technology or means other than the Website itself.

E. You agree not to use or launch any automated system, including without limitation, "robots," "spiders," or "offline readers," that accesses the Website in a manner that sends more request messages to the servers in a given period of time than a human can reasonably produce in the same period by using a conventional on-line web browser. Notwithstanding the foregoing, grants the operators of public search engines permission to use spiders to copy materials from the site for the sole purpose of and solely to the extent necessary for creating publicly available searchable indices of the materials, but not caches or archives of such materials. reserves the right to revoke these exceptions either generally or in specific cases. You agree not to collect or harvest any personally identifiable information, including account names, from the Website, nor to use the communication systems provided by the Website (e.g. comments, email) for any commercial solicitation purposes. You agree not to solicit, for commercial purposes, any users of the Website with respect to their User Submissions.

What is disturbing about this issue is that many false positives are given, and stories that are not in violation are being reported. The administration of FFNET have been made aware of this issue, but even after repeated e-mails they seem to be either indifferent or actually support the use of this program by Literate Union.

What follows is what is known about RedBootton and how this one simple program could easily impact the site and why every one should be angry that the administration as remained silent about this issue.

(RB) is a program that accesses and systematically searches for and reports stories that it flags as in violation of ToS.

program is not perfect and has had false hits, resulting in stories with the inclusion of a header formatted in the following manner as being reported for script format even when the rest of the story is in actual story paragraph form.

Rating:

Pairing:

Summery:

Authors Note:

no long reads or even checks over the stories that are flagged by RB before hitting the report function.

advanced form of the program that is available to trusted members that includes a search function for typo's and grammar. This could result in a 10,000+ word stories that may have a few typo's or stories that have characters that may have dialog that is grammatically incorrect as being reported.

is a beta version that will have the ability to search for MA stories. This search function is based upon the flagging of certain words within the text. A story that may have a rooster referred to as a cock or a cat being called a pussy could easily be flagged and reported as MA.

6.A Beta version of the advanced program will have the capability to "clean house" site wide, including scanning any stories as they are being posted.

For those who think that is fiction I give you links to the Literate Union Forum.

.net/topic/61196/30589812/1/

In this thread is where Lord Kelvin talks about and includes links to where this program can be downloaded for general use. At one point LK even states "Specific words/phrases are rated MA automatically because they are only present in stories with paraphilia."

.net/topic/61196/30532995/38/#30685587

In this thread there is more talk about both RB and how to use it.

Over the past week multiple emails were sent to the admin and mods of FFNet with no answer. Although it is possible that with a site as large as FFNet that they have yet to find time to address this issue, I find myself leaning more to the belief that they just don't care. Since the site seems unwilling or unable to handle this issue there is only one solution.

That is to leave FFNet. Writers should remove their stories and find alternative sites for posting them. Readers to stop visiting. Perhaps then and only then will this issue be seen as important by the owner.

Personally I would rather fight then flee

Please Post this same message to your stories to to let out the word.


End file.
